San Antonio leaders look for ways to block potential ICE detention site
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Protestors against ICE march toward the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley last month. Photo: Joel Angel Juarez/Getty Images
Several San Antonio elected officials aren't happy about reports that ICE is eyeing a warehouse on the city's East Side to expand its detention space, but it's not clear what they can do about it.
Why it matters: The federal government directly purchases facilities, making it harder — but not impossible — for local officials to combat the Trump administration's plans to scale up its detention capacity.
The big picture: A lack of detention space has been a bottleneck in President Trump's push for mass deportations — and has led to overcrowding and illnesses at ICE's facility in Dilley, south of San Antonio.
The latest: ICE completed the purchase of a vacant warehouse at 542 S.E. Loop 410 from Atlanta-based Oakmont Industrial Group, the Express-News reported Tuesday, citing two anonymous sources.
What they're saying: In a statement to Axios Tuesday, an ICE spokesperson said the agency had no new detention centers to announce, but it is "actively working to expand detention space."
- "These will not be warehouses — they will be very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards," the spokesperson said.
- Representatives from Oakmont, and Partners Real Estate Company, which has marketed the property, did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for information.
How it works: ICE does not need the city's permission to house people at a designated facility, as the city does not have zoning authority over property owned or leased by the federal government, city spokesperson Brian Chasnoff tells Axios.
- The city had no information on the reported sale as of Tuesday afternoon, Chasnoff says.
Yes, but: Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert, who represents the East Side, tells Axios that the city and county should both explore other legal options to halt a new detention center — such as filing an injunction based on the lack of an environmental impact study that is typically required by the federal government.
- Calvert says the Commissioners Court could consider that option at its Feb. 17 meeting.
- U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) and Greg Casar (D-Austin) also said in a statement Tuesday that they "will fight with every tool available to prevent" a new detention center in San Antonio.
Between the lines: District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who also represents the East Side, this week asked people to contact Oakmont and encourage the company not to sell its property to ICE. On Monday night, before a report that the sale was completed, he said there was no "Plan B."
- "We are a City Council with very limited authority over any state or federal agency. If the federal government purchases this property, no resolution or ordinance or anything that we pass is going to stop it," McKee-Rodriguez said on Monday.
Zoom in: The warehouse sits across Loop 410 from Copernicus Park and Essence Preparatory Charter School, which the state has ordered closed by the end of the school year.
- It's about four miles away from Sam Houston High School and S. J. Davis Middle School in San Antonio ISD.
Zoom out: DHS has scouted dozens of locations, including sites outside Dallas, in El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley, to retrofit into ICE detention centers. The biggest ones could hold as many as 9,500 people.
- Now that the agency has $45 billion to spend from the "big, beautiful bill," it's quickly making purchases for hundreds of millions of dollars. These sites will require additional spending to retrofit them to house people — for up to six months, as permitted by law — before deportation.
Axios' Brittany Gibson contributed to this report.