Arizona Residents Fight Back Against ICE Detention Center Plans
Down an industrial row in Surprise, a suburb of Phoenix, you typically see exactly what you expect. Beverage trucks zip in and out of a boxy grey warehouse on the right. To the left, rows of chemical storage tanks fill an open lot. If you’ve seen one industrial park in the U.S., you’ve seen them all.
But one building sits empty. In late January, the Department of Homeland Security bought it for $70 million in cash. This purchase is part of a reported $38 billion shopping spree. The agency is acquiring millions of square feet of commercial real estate to be retrofitted as immigration detention bedspace.
Bloomberg reported late last month that DHS is eyeing nearly two dozen sites. If completed, these sites could double the current detention capacity of about 68,000 people.
Surprise Residents Speak Out
Over a hundred local residents spoke out against the effort during a five-hour Surprise city council meeting earlier this month. They raised a wide range of concerns. Some worried about holding detainees with criminal histories in their community. Others pointed to the possible strain on infrastructure. They cited worries about water, sewers, electricity, traffic, and emergency services.
One speaker noted the loss of revenue since the federal government is exempt from local taxes. However, most people offered broader condemnations of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown. They simply didn’t want that project to define their town’s legacy.
“It is disheartening that the first time our small town makes national news, it is not for who we are, but for something that threatens the dignity and safety of our own people,” a woman said.
Strange Bedfellows in Local Politics
The Surprise forum reflects debates happening in local government meetings across the country. These conversations create strange bedfellows and unexpected coalitions. Earlier this week, near the sprawling warehouse in Surprise, I sat down with Lisa Everett. She is a local conservative political activist and a loud critic of the plan.
A three-time Trump voter, Everett told me she supports tightening the U.S. border. She also backs deportation efforts that target people with violent convictions. Yet, she has profound issues with the broader immigration dragnet.
She believes the crackdown sweeps up tax-paying, nonviolent community members. It expands detention into indefinite limbo. This raises a blunt question: If deportations are the goal, why build so many beds?
Like Everett, many other Trump supporters take issue with a local detention center. For many, objections have been more about the impacts on the community than about the people held inside. For Everett, it’s both.
An Unlikely Alliance
This stance pushed her into unlikely company. Everett recently began coordinating with the local chapter of Indivisible. This left-leaning national grassroots network formed in opposition to Trump’s first presidency. That alliance, and her broader immigration advocacy, led local Republican leaders to censure her. She told me she remains undeterred.
“I won’t stay silent when people’s dignity is being stripped from them,” Everett said.
When I asked about the odds of stopping the planned detention center, Everett paused to stifle tears. Her voice cracked. “I’m afraid we’ll have it here. I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”
Her pessimism mirrors City Hall’s posture. On Wednesday, Mayor Kevin Sartor sent a letter to DHS requesting information on the building’s intended use. He also asked for impact studies. But the letter was extremely deferential. It acknowledged in multiple places that “we can’t interfere with federal operations.”
Legal Battles and Public Nuisances
Other Arizona officials are exploring more aggressive legal stances. This week, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said she was considering suing the federal government under a state law. This law allows officials to block any “public nuisance” that disrupts the community’s “comfortable enjoyment of life or property.”
As seen in some local efforts to restrain and scrutinize the administration’s operation in Minneapolis, using state law to stop the feds is difficult. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution places federal law above state and local statutes. But Mayes isn’t the only official looking to throw legal roadblocks in front of these plans.
City councils across the country have passed resolutions questioning or resisting warehouse detention plans. This includes El Paso, Texas, Merrillville, Indiana, and Durant, Oklahoma.
Public Pressure Yields Results
In Kansas City, Missouri, the city council voted 12-1 in January to block federal detention center permits. Like other local efforts, the ordinance might not have held up in court. But it won’t have to. Platform Ventures, the company selling the property, announced on Thursday that it would not go forward with the sale. They cited public pressure.
A similar dynamic played out this week in Salt Lake County, Utah. County Mayor Jenny Wilson pledged to use “all available legal and policy avenues” to oppose a DHS warehouse there. Shortly after, the property owner announced it had “no plans” to sell or lease the building to the federal government.
Across the country, communities find this approach increasingly effective for stopping warehouse detention centers. In Ashland, Virginia, Canadian billionaire Jim Pattison owned a warehouse. He was in the process of selling it to DHS in late January. After news broke, threats of a customer boycott hit Pattison’s Canadian grocery store chain. Additionally, advertisers suspended their contracts with his company. Within days, Pattison’s development company stated the transaction would not proceed.
Economic and Infrastructure Concerns
In some cases, political pressure higher up the chain proves effective. Plans for a detention warehouse in Byhalia, Mississippi, were scratched after Republican Sen. Roger Wicker raised concerns. He spoke directly to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Wicker wrote that the conversion would foreclose economic growth opportunities in an up-and-coming region.
Similarly, in Hutchins, south of Dallas, local officials worry about DHS’s purchase of a 1-million square foot building. They fear it will, among other things, imperil the local treasury. The property generated about $1.8 million in annual tax revenue. The federal government would not have to pay this. This potentially jeopardizes the city’s ability to pay back a bond. Similar concerns follow proposed sites in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and Chester, New York.
In other places, simple infrastructure problems outweigh legal or financial pressure. A massive planned warehouse detention facility in Social Circle, Georgia, could triple the town’s current population of 5,000. City Manager Eric Taylor told multiple news outlets that the local infrastructure, specifically water and sewer, is nearly maxed out. It simply cannot handle this additional load.
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