Resistance erupts over ICE's warehouse buying spree
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP
A massive buyer has entered the market for commercial warehouses, sparking furious local protests:
- The Department of Homeland Security has scouted dozens of locations to retrofit into ICE detention centers. The biggest ones could hold as many as 9,500 people.
Why it matters: ICE's detention population nearly doubled over the past year, but lack of capacity was a bottleneck on mass deportations.
- Now that it has $45 billion to spend from the "Big, Beautiful Bill," it's quickly making purchases for hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of the sites are warehouses previously designed for e-commerce retailers, Bloomberg reported.
- These sites will need additional spending to retrofit them to house people — for what can legally be up to six months — before deportation.
Friction point: In Hanover County, Virginia, anti-ICE protesters flooded a Board of Supervisors meeting to oppose the purchase of a roughly $50 million warehouse, as Axios Richmond's Sabrina Moreno reported.
- In Hagerstown, Maryland, hundreds of protesters descended on another already-purchased warehouse, along with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) who has been a vocal voice against ICE's expansions under the Trump administration, according to the Baltimore Banner.
- Minnesota, Texas, New Hampshire and New York residents packed county meeting rooms and protested detention expansions in recent weeks, according to local reports.
Zoom in: The intensity and aggressive tactics of Trump's immigration enforcement has cratered public support for ICE's mission.
- The deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January have not only provoked public outrage in the city but has even caused Trump to recalibrate.
- But border czar Tom Homan, who is now leading enforcement operation reforms in Minneapolis, said at a recent press conference this wasn't a retreat from Trump's mass deportation campaign promise to deport millions of people.
By the numbers: DHS has already spent more $170 million on properties in Maryland and Arizona, according to public records reported by Bloomberg.
- The goal is have facilities hold approximately 500 people at smaller warehouses and between 7,500 and 9,500 at the largest ones.
- The federal government directly purchasing these facilities makes it harder for the city and state governments to push back on DHS's plans.
Zoom out: The Trump administration has tried numerous schemes to quickly scale up detention capacity.
- State-run sites like Alligator Alcatraz brought hundreds of additional beds online, as well as litigation over detention standards.
- Agreements with local jails, usually run by sheriffs, were heavily promoted by Homan and the administration in Trump's first year in office. But local jails are often not suitable or adequately resourced for long-term stays.
- Private prison contractors, namely Geo Group and CoreCivic, have also been tapped to open more bed space. But on earnings calls last quarter, both companies said they had untapped capacity still available.
The bottom line: Almost 70,000 people are currently being held by ICE, according to the latest figures in early January. ICE is obligated to update this data bi-monthly for Congress.
