In the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that became law last summer, Republican lawmakers provided President Trump with $45 billion to fund a massive expansion of immigrant detention facilities, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is beginning to spend those funds at sites around the country — though not without controversy.
As the Associated Press reports Tuesday, proposed ICE facilities are drawing protests in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented immigrants, which has resulted in multiple deaths at the hands of federal agents. Hundreds of protesters gathered at a board of supervisors meeting outside of Richmond, Virginia, last week, as county officials reviewed a proposal to build a new ICE facility. In Kansas City, Missouri, the mayor said he is working to prevent an ICE detention site from being built in the city. Officials in Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City said last week that local property owners will not be selling or leasing sites to ICE.
Still, ICE continues to move forward with its expansion. Last month, the agency purchased multiple large-scale warehouses, spending $102 million for a site in Washington County, Maryland; $84 million for a site in Berks County, Pennsylvania; and more than $70 million for a site in Surprise, Arizona.
“They will be very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards,” ICE said in a statement. “It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”
As ICE presses ahead, some states are looking at legislation that bans or otherwise limits the agency’s activities, though there are questions about the legality of such efforts. Last week, the New Mexico House passed a bill that would prohibit the state and local governments from entering into contracts with ICE to operate detention facilities. Similar bills are under review in Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.