A federal court judge in Baltimore has issued a temporary restraining order, halting for the next two weeks the construction of a new federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the small western Maryland town of Williamsport to house up to 1,500 detainees.
“The State identifies a number of serious environmental risks from potential renovation and construction at the Williamsport warehouse, including contamination of three waterways adjacent to or downstream from the property: Semple Run, Conococheague Creek and the Potomac River, and the corresponding ecosystems that depend on these waterways,” U.S. District Court Judge Brendan Hurson wrote in the ruling.
A day earlier, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown had filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to stop converting its purchased 825,000-square-foot warehouse into the detention center. The motion followed the state’s Feb. 23 legal challenge that claimed the conversion is being conducted without required environmental reviews, public input or state cooperation.
“Federal immigration authorities are exceeding their legal obligations in an attempt to build an immigration detention center as soon as they can,” Brown said in a statement. “Once construction begins, the damage to Maryland’s waterways, protected species and communities cannot be undone.”
Brown’s lawsuit wants Homeland Security to release administrative records about conditions at an existing detention center in Baltimore. “The conditions inside Baltimore’s holding cells have been dangerous, inhumane and illegal, and ICE and DHS have done everything they can to keep us from finding out how bad they are,” he said. “Agencies have shut down our investigation while people in their custody are denied critical medical care and forced to sleep in cold cement cells and live in their own excrement.”
KVG LLC, a mission support company based in Gettysburg, Pa., won a $113 million contract March 6 to retrofit the Williamsport facility to house 1,500 people, according to Fedspending.gov, a government website that tracks federal contract awards, with the potential to expand the award to $642 million. The Maryland warehouse is one of many across the United States that Homeland Security purchased with funds authorized by the budget bill signed last July.
Zoning, other rules In short circuit
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Governors in states where warehouse conversions are also being legally challenged, including Michigan and New Jersey, have noted that the repurposed buildings could and likely would violate building codes, zoning requirements and state laws.
The methods the department uses to acquire and monitor work may also violate its own internal protocols, says Andy Gordon, a former lawyer for Obama-era Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
“There were some basic requirements for the detention centers [and currently] much discussion than without a doubt the center that they propose to set up in Sorpresa. Arizona doesn’t meet the standards,” he told ENR, adding that the way Homeland Security got the contract for [that] The facility may also have been an effort to avoid the department’s requirements for detention centers. The Arizona warehouse is about 400,000 square feet, with a purchase and conversion cost estimated at $220 million in media reports.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) said in a Feb. 9 letter to outgoing Secretary Kristi Noem and Ted Lyons, acting director of the agency’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit, that city residents “are left in the dark about [department] plans and have serious concerns.” He pointed to his authority to challenge development of the new facility under public nuisance laws.
“I have no doubt there will be litigation,” Gordon said. “There are a lot of different avenues to go down in litigation, and I don’t know which ones will go down, but I’m sure there will be lawsuits.”
GardaWorld, a contractor working on the South Florida detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by administration officials, was awarded a contract worth up to $313 million to retrofit and operate the Surprise, Ariz., facility in its first year. It can be extended until 2029 at a total cost of up to $704 million.
The mass detention center in Florida’s Everglades continues to operate and accept new detainees, despite an August ruling by a federal judge barring new construction at the site. But the state appealed the ruling, siding with conservation groups, including Friends of the Everglades and Earthjustice, against allowing the center to continue operating while the litigation plays out.
A bipartisan group of Arizona lawmakers, including Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), a conservative ally of President Donald Trump, has questioned the secrecy behind the acquisition and conversion of warehouse facilities into detention camps without input from the city and state. In a Feb. 4 letter to federal Homeland Security officials, Gosar said that while he supported the mission to deport people living in the U.S. illegally, the department still has obligations to cooperate with state and local officials. “Even when the ability to detain is necessary, it must be implemented responsibly, with proper review and open communication,” he said.
House and Senate lawmakers introduced the Respect Local Communities Act on Feb. 23 that would require ICE to solicit public comment and cooperate with local communities before acquiring and building new mass detention centers.
The bill responds “directly to the concerns we’ve heard from local officials in cities like Merrimack, New Hampshire and across the country,” bill sponsor Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (DN.H.) said in a statement. “They were never consulted about ICE’s plans, and they don’t want the chaos of new detention centers in their communities.”
Rep. Chris Pappas (DN.H.) is co-sponsoring the bill in the House. The measure currently has six co-sponsors.
