ICE’s efforts to turn commercial warehouses into detention centers have faced opposition from local residents and elected officials of both parties.
DHS purchases Berks County warehouse to use as ICE detention center
The Trump administration purchased a vacant warehouse in Berks County for $84 million to use as an immigration detention center.
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The Trump administration’s plan to rapidly expand immigration detention centers has stalled, with many residents not liking the idea of converting local warehouses into deportation camps.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has purchased, inspected or attempted to purchase at least a dozen commercial buildings since December in states including Texas, Mississippi, New York and Oregon, USA TODAY has learned. Court records and other disclosures show sales for each warehouse range from tens of millions of dollars to more than $100 million.
However, in some cases, local politicians from both parties have sided with concerned residents, causing public anger to break up the agreement.
In Oklahoma City, after several protests and a packed City Council meeting, a company that had planned to sell a warehouse to ICE withdrew from the deal, a move supported by Republican Mayor David Holt. In Democratic-led Salt Lake City, a company vowed not to sell a warehouse that ICE was scouting for a 7,500-bed detention center.
ICE did not respond to specific questions about the building but defended the administration’s efforts to increase detention capacity.
“These will not be warehouses, but very well-structured detention facilities that meet standard detention standards,” an ICE spokesperson said in an email to USA TODAY, adding, “It should not be news that ICE is making arrests and actively working to expand detention space in states across the country.”
Critics of the plan include politicians who support immigration enforcement efforts. On February 4, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker asked ICE not to move forward with a plan to convert a warehouse in the town of Byhalia into a detention facility for more than 8,500 detainees.
“While I support enforcement of our immigration laws, I am writing to express my opposition to this takeover and detention center project,” Wicker said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, adding that such facilities would place a “significant strain” on local resources.
Meanwhile, residents have staged large-scale protests as some local and state officials draft ordinances and bills to close the detention centers. Advocates and elected officials have raised concerns that the building was intended to house commercial cargo rather than people, citing reports of poor conditions at other ICE facilities built last year.
“It’s similar to Prime, but just like humans.”
President Donald Trump’s second term saw an explosion in the number of ICE detention facilities and the number of people held there.
According to ICE data, there were 107 detention centers holding immigrants in January 2025, but by the end of the year, that number had nearly doubled to 212. These facilities include privately operated, purpose-built immigration detention centers. Temporary tent facility on a military base. county jail. and state prison.
Naina Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, said the move to repurpose large commercial spaces to house detainees underscores the Trump administration’s aggressive push to maximize deportations.
“Building a new facility with solid walls takes time and it doesn’t go very quickly,” she told USA TODAY. “Purchasing an existing facility that is easy to stand up is a way to overcome delays and barriers.”
Mr. Gupta noted that this effort appears to be consistent with comments made by ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons at the Border Security Expo in Arizona last year.
“We need to do a better job of treating this as a business,” Lyons said at the event, adding that he would like to see a deportation process “like[Amazon]Prime, but with humans.”
Some of the proposed warehouses are planned to hold more than 8,000 illegal immigrants at a time. Camp East Montana, the largest ICE detention center currently in operation, has a capacity of 5,000 beds but has been plagued by reports of poor conditions.
The tent camp at Fort Bliss Army Base in Texas was charged with 60 violations by ICE inspectors in September, and an American Civil Liberties Union report based on dozens of interviews found a pattern of physical abuse, sexual abuse, medical neglect and food shortages.
The Department of Homeland Security denied the report’s allegations of abuse and maintained that all detainees were given proper due process.
The Texas facility has recently come under intense scrutiny after the death of a Cuban immigrant was officially ruled a homicide in January. ICE officials previously said the man, Gerardo Lunas Campos, died after “experiencing medical distress.”
Proposed ICE facility would revitalize community
As word of these proposed facilities spread, anger spread among local residents.
In the Hudson Valley town of Chester, New York, where Trump won a majority of votes in 2024, hundreds of people braved subzero temperatures to protest a proposed Department of Homeland Security plan to buy warehouses and turn them into ICE detention centers.
Residents held placards reading “ICE=TERROR” and “I’m not mad at you.” It’s a nod to Renee Nicole Good’s last words before she was shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis in January. At a recent Chester Village board meeting, 600 people showed up to condemn the proposed facility, necessitating a change of location from its regular location to a senior center.
In Washington County, Maryland, where Trump won 60% of the vote in 2024, residents protested on January 20 after DHS purchased a warehouse for more than $102 million.
Nancy Evans, 80, who lives in the Williamsport area, said she opposes ICE facilities because they are “arresting people they shouldn’t be arresting” and using “excessive force,” citing a recent operation in Minneapolis.
“We don’t want that,” Evans told the Herald-Mail, part of the USA TODAY Network.
More than 1,000 people attended a Jan. 31 rally in Surprise, Arizona, outside Phoenix, after DHS purchased a 418,000-square-foot warehouse.
“An ICE facility in Surprise would be a stain on our city,” local resident Carol Parnell told USA TODAY Network’s Arizona Republic.
Similar protests are taking place in Orlando, Florida. Salt Lake City; Social Circle, Georgia; and Salem, Oregon.
Can local and state authorities stop ICE detention centers?
Local officials say they face opposition to building camps and have limited power to block the federal government from acquiring land and buildings, especially from private owners.
Officials in Surprise, Arizona, where ICE bought the warehouse from a private company for $70 million in cash, said there wasn’t much they could do because the federal project is not subject to local regulations such as zoning.
This “completely leaves us powerless,” Surprise City Councilman Chris Judd told The Arizona Republic. “It looks like it’s out of our control.”
In Orlando, where ICE agents have repeatedly visited the 440,000-square-foot warehouse, Democratic Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a statement that the city has tried to find a way to prevent the opening of an ICE detention facility, but has not found one.
“The city cannot take any action to restrict or regulate any activity of the federal government,” Dyer said.
Meanwhile, other communities are attempting to implement ordinances and other regulations that would prevent the opening of ICE detention centers in their communities, but the success of such efforts remains uncertain.
In El Paso, Texas, a bipartisan City Council unanimously approved an action plan in February aimed at finding ways to prevent future detention center construction, including creating a moratorium on ICE facilities.
Countries are also taking measures. A bill to ban ICE detention centers in New Mexico was passed by the Democratic-led state Legislature on February 3 and is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Similar bills have been introduced in Delaware, New York, and Massachusetts.
Some private sellers withdraw from transactions due to public pressure
Local governments may have limited authority to block the opening of ICE detention facilities, but protesters and authorities have found a winning formula: putting pressure on private property owners.
In Salt Lake City, rumors about a possible ICE detention facility sparked a protest outside a warehouse that Homeland Security officials were said to be inspecting.
On January 24, the family-owned Ritchie Group released a statement that said the company and its law enforcement agency “have no plans to sell or lease the property in question to the federal government,” an announcement welcomed by residents and local leaders alike.
Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson said in a statement that she was “very relieved to hear that Ritchie Group will not sell or lease the Salt Lake City warehouse that was designated as an ICE detention facility.”
On January 30, Canadian company Jim Pattinson Developments made a similar announcement, assuring residents of Ashland, Virginia, that it would not move forward with a deal to sell a 550,000-square-foot warehouse to DHS.
The company said it accepted the bid before knowing the facility would be used “in support of ICE operations,” as stated in a letter from DHS to Hanover County officials.
Similarly, in Oklahoma City, the private owner of a warehouse that ICE had planned to purchase withdrew from the deal following an outcry at the City Council and protests downtown.
“I applaud the owners’ decision and on behalf of the people of Oklahoma City, I thank them,” Republican Mayor David Holt said in a statement after the deal failed.
State Sen. Michael Brooks, an immigration attorney who represents south Oklahoma City, celebrated the collapse of the agreement and said he expected other property owners who had contracts with ICE to face similar backlash.
“What was clear at City Council was that the public was not going to support this,” Brooks said. “People are full of energy.”
Villaran and Jennifer Boresen, ONE TOD. Svemer, Okistofer, Okrihoman. Vandana Saras, Middletown Times-Herald Record, Julie E. Green, Herald Mill. Elena Santa Cruz, Archive Republic. Other than that.; Pam Dunkins, Mississippi Clarion Ledger
Christopher Cann is a national breaking news reporter for USA TODAY. Email us at ccann@usatoday.com.
