In a Texas town at the edge of the Rio Grande and a tall metal border wall, rumours swirled that federal immigration officials wanted to purchase three hulking warehouses to transform into a detention centre.
As local officials scrambled to find out what was happening, a deed was filed showing the Department of Homeland Security had already inked a US$122.8 million (NZ$205 million) deal for the 76,738-square-metre warehouses in Socorro, a bedroom community of 40,000 people outside El Paso.
“Nobody from the federal government bothered to pick up the phone or even send us any type of correspondence letting us know what’s about to take place,” said Rudy Cruz Jr., the mayor of the predominantly Hispanic town of low-slung ranch homes and trailer parks, where orchards and irrigation ditches share the landscape with strip malls, truck stops, recycling plants and distribution warehouses.
Socorro is among at least 20 communities with large warehouses across the US that have become stealth targets for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s US$45 billion (NZ$75 billion) expansion of detention centres.
As public support for the agency and President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown sags, communities are objecting to mass detentions and raising concerns that the facilities could strain water supplies and other services while reducing local tax revenue.
In many cases, mayors, county commissioners, governors and members of Congress learned about ICE’s ambitions only after the agency bought or leased space for detainees, leading to shock and frustration even in areas that have backed Trump.
”I just feel,” said Cruz, whose wife was born in Mexico, “that they do these things in silence so that they don’t get opposition.”
Communities scramble for information
ICE, which is part of DHS, has purchased at least seven warehouses in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas, signed deeds show. Other deals have been announced but not yet finalised, though buyers scuttled sales in eight locations.
DHS objected to calling the sites warehouses, stressing in a statement that they would be “very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”
The process has been chaotic at times. ICE this past week acknowledged it made a “mistake” when it announced warehouse purchases in Chester, New York, and Roxbury, New Jersey. Roxbury then announced Friday (local time) that the sale there had closed.
DHS has confirmed it is looking for more detention space but hasn’t disclosed individual sites ahead of acquisitions. Some cities learned that ICE was scouting warehouses through reporters. Others were tipped off by a spreadsheet circulating online among activists whose source is unclear.
It wasn’t until February 13 that the scope of the warehouse project was confirmed, when the governor’s office in New Hampshire, where there is backlash to a planned 500-bed processing centre, released a document from ICE showing the agency plans to spend US$38.3 billion (NZ$63 billion) to boost detention capacity to 92,000 beds.
Since Trump took office, the number of people detained by ICE has increased to 75,000 from 40,000, spread across more than 225 sites.
ICE could use the warehouses to consolidate and to increase capacity. The document describes a project that includes eight large-scale detention centres, capable of housing 7000 to 10,000 detainees each, and 16 smaller regional processing centres. The document also refers to the acquisition of 10 existing “turnkey” facilities.
The project is funded through the big tax and spending cuts bill passed by Congress last year that nearly doubled DHS’ budget. To build the detention centres, the Trump administration is using military contracts.
Those contracts allow a lot of secrecy and for DHS to move quickly without following the usual processes and safeguards, said Charles Tiefer, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Baltimore Law School.
Socorro facility could be among the largest
In Socorro, the ICE-owned warehouses are so large that 4 1/2 Walmart Supercentres could fit inside, standing in contrast to the remnants of the austere Spanish colonial and mission architecture that defines the town.
At a recent City Council meeting, public comments stretched for hours. “I think a lot of innocent people are getting caught up in their dragnet,” said Jorge Mendoza, an El Paso County retiree whose grandparents immigrated from Mexico.
Many speakers invoked concerns about three recent deaths at an ICE detention facility at the nearby Fort Bliss Army base.
Communities fear a financial hit
Even communities that backed Trump in 2024 have been caught off guard by ICE’s plans and have raised concerns.
In rural Pennsylvania’s Berks County, commissioner Christian Leinbach called the district attorney, the sheriff, the jail warden and the county’s head of emergency services when he first heard ICE might buy a warehouse in Upper Bern Township, 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from his home.
No one knew anything.
A few days later, a local official in charge of land records informed him that ICE had bought the building — promoted by developers as a “state-of-the art logistics centre” — for US$87.4 million (NZ$145 million).
“There was absolutely no warning,” Leinbach said during a meeting in which he raised concerns that turning the warehouse into a federal facility means a loss of more than $800,000 in local tax dollars.
ICE has touted the income taxes its workers would pay, though the facilities themselves will be exempt from property taxes.
A Georgia detention centre could house twice the population of the city where it’s located
In Social Circle, Georgia, which also strongly supported Trump in 2024, officials were stunned by ICE’s plans for a facility that could hold 7500 to 10,000 people after first learning about it through a reporter.
The city, which has a population of just 5000 and worries about the infrastructure needs for such a detention centre, only heard from DHS after the US$128.6 million (NZ$214 million) sale of a 92,900-square-metre warehouse was completed. Like Socorro and Berks County, Social Circle questioned whether the water and sewage system could keep up.
ICE has said it did due diligence to ensure the sites don’t overwhelm city utilities. But Social Circle said the agency’s analysis relied on a yet-to-be built sewer treatment plant.
“To be clear, the City has repeatedly communicated that it does not have the capacity or resources to accommodate this demand, and no proposal presented to date has demonstrated otherwise,” the city said in a statement.
And in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, officials sent a scathing letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after ICE without warning bought a massive warehouse in a residential area about a mile from a high school. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, raised the prospect of going to court to have the site declared a public nuisance.
Crowds wait to speak in Socorro
Back in Socorro, people waiting to speak against the ICE facility spilled out of the City Council chambers, some standing beside murals paying tribute to the World War II-era Braceros Program that allowed Mexican farmworkers to be guest workers in the US. The program stoked Socorro’s economy and population before President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration in the 1950s began mass deportations aimed at people who had crossed the border illegally.
Eduardo Castillo, formerly an attorney for the US Department of Justice, told city officials it is intimidating but “not impossible” to challenge the federal government.
“If you don’t at least try,” he said, “you will end up with another inhumane detention facility built in your jurisdiction and under your watch.”
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