What It Means To Have An ICE Detention Center In Your Backyard

0:00Support for this podcast comes from Northwestern University's Online Master's in Public Policy and administration, preparing graduates to drive meaningful change at the local, national, and international levels. Learn more at sps.northwestern.edu.

0:23Towns across the U.S. are now grappling with what it means to have ICE detention centers in their backyards, even towns that overwhelmingly voted for President Trump and support his deportation efforts. I'm all for doing what's best for the country, but is it best for this community? That was Georgia resident Stephen Williford talking with the BBC. He's one of those protesting the placement of a detention center in his community in Social Circle, Georgia. Last week, hundreds of protesters showed up outside a Maryland courtroom while a federal judge temporarily blocked the construction of a detention center in that state.

1:00That pause will remain in place as a lawsuit from the state's attorney general plays out. Last month, Pennsylvania's governor, Democrat Josh Shapiro, blocked ICE's access to water and sewage systems in two different counties where warehouses were bought. While she was the head of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem bought nearly a dozen large warehouses around the U.S. to turn into mega ICE detention centers. These warehouses can hold up to 10 ,000 detainees at a time. ICE is projected to spend over$38 billion on not only buying the warehouses, but converting them into detention centers. Local leaders argue these centers will overwhelm local resources.

1:37It all comes during a leadership shakeup at DHS and ICE, and during heightened scrutiny as the death rate at these centers reach a record high. I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast. Today, we ask what are conditions like in established facilities, and what is the future of these mega detention centers? Answers to those questions and more after this short break. Stay with us.

2:02This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana. Making buying a car 100 % online with real, transparent pricing and customizable financing that fits your budget. Browse thousands of cars and get yours delivered. Visit Carvana.com today. Delivery fees and terms may apply. What happens when our political party becomes the prism through which we see every other aspect of our identities? What we're living through, I think, is really the two parties taking opposite sides on whether we want to keep making this type of social progress or whether we want to go back in time. Listen to NPR's Code Switch podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

2:44Welcome back to the 1A podcast. We're discussing the building of ICE detention centers across the nation and what that means for the communities living near them. Let's get into our conversation and meet our guests. Here in studio is Doug McMillan. He's a corporate accountability reporter at The Washington Post. Doug, welcome to the program. Hi, thanks for having me. And joining us from Florida is Sui Chung. She's an immigration lawyer and executive director of Americans for Immigrant Justice. That's a pro bono law firm that protects the rights of immigrants and is the only legal service provider in Florida that represents low-income immigrants for free.

3:18Sui, welcome to the program. Thank you so much. So, Doug, first describe the general expansion of ICE detention facilities we've seen since the Trump administration began its deportation crackdown in January 2025. Yeah, so at that point, when Trump came into office this term, this country already had the world's largest immigrant detention system, which I think is important to note. He set about setting a goal to double capacity of that system. So there were at that point about 40 ,000 detained immigrants, and they wanted to have a system where they could detain up to 100 ,000 people at a time.

3:53So they set about trying to kind of put piece together a larger detention system all around the country using kind of a kitchen sink approach. They were going after, let's set up tent camps in Texas and Florida. Let's reopen former prisons, private prisons that were closed and unused for many years, issuing them new contracts and reopening those. They did manage to expand detention quite a bit. But at some point last year, I think around the fall time, they kind of had a strategy pivot. And instead of just trying to get more and more and more detention space to try to get more people, I think some members of the administration wanted to kind of think, how can we more efficiently detain and deport people?

4:36And that led them to this plan of can we put people together, put immigrants together, detainees together into these very large scale detention centers in warehouses around the country? And will that make us more efficiently work the system? ICE's previous acting director, Todd Lyons, publicly compared their strategy to similar to – they want to emulate what Amazon does with its logistics network in terms of he said they want to literally make this more efficient and move human beings like Amazon moves packages. So that is what led to today. They've actually gone out and bought these warehouses, and they've started down this path, and we'll see how far they get with this new strategy.

5:15Sui, you have clients inside detention centers right now. What are you hearing from them about the conditions inside these facilities? Thank you. This has been an ongoing issue. Americans for Immigrant Justice has been monitoring detention conditions throughout 2025, medical neglect, critical medical conditions, not receiving medication for weeks, months, inadequate food and water, foul-smelling water, and severe overcrowding. overcrowding, for example, Chrome. And this is a facility in Florida, in Miami, Florida, but it is replicated throughout the country, which is that Chrome has been beyond its contractual capacity.

5:58A facility for 611 people holding 1 ,800 is unheard of, 30 to 40 people for a room designed for 680 people, where a room is designed for 25 people. Very unbelievable conditions. More, you know, to put a real spotlight on this mass expansion is the example of Alligator Alcatraz in Florida and the fact that this facility was created in a matter of weeks. This tent facility with cages within cages. Americans for Immigrant Justice with ACLU has an access to counsel suit, individuals not being able to contact lawyers, not knowing how to contact lawyers, and even attorney access being restricted at that facility.

6:48For example, two cell phones for 3 ,000 individuals. Well, I also want to touch on the number of people who have died in ICE custody. That's reached a record high this fiscal year. The most recent death was a presumed death by suicide of a Cuban man who was being held in Miami, Florida. That's according to an ICE report. Briefly, Sui, what can you tell us about the rising number of deaths and why that may be happening? Well, it's increased exponentially. It has reached a stage where it's considered now that these are not one-offs in terms of deaths in the facility. Most recently, we did have a death of a teenager in Florida, a 19-year-old.

7:30So this is severely concerning. So we're hitting the record in 2026, the last record being in 2004 in terms of the number of deaths. So already this year, we have 17 deaths. We're averaging about every 5.9 days another death in ICE facilities. So this is severely concerning. So that's the current state of detention facilities. But Doug, I want to talk about these warehouses that were bought by former DHS chief Kristi Noem. ICE is now the highest funded law enforcement agency following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer. It now has$85 billion in its coffers, up from$6 billion just 10 years ago.

8:15What can you tell us about Noem's purchases? Well, they got a check from Congress and they have this money and they want to spend it on this plan to accelerate deportations. And I think they saw this idea of buying these buildings and the federal government owning the buildings themselves. And this is a big shift for the strategy of immigrant detention in this country, which previously used to be contracting out these facilities to private companies that generally operate most of the immigrant detention in the system. Under the new kind of model that they're moving to, and the opportunity they saw with these buildings was for the federal government to own these buildings and for them to therefore be able to kind of basically do whatever they want.

8:55There's, you know, federal precedent saying that supremacy clause in the Constitution has generally been interpreted as federal buildings, federal government, priority takes precedent over local priority. And so therefore, they felt like they didn't have to deal with local laws, deal with local opposition in places where they needed to create these large-scale detention centers. Well, there are also reports that the government paid more for these warehouses than their value. What do we know about how much more and why? I think that there's a real estate data firm called CoStar that did an estimate of around, the government paid a 10 % plus premium generally on most of these buildings.

9:35I think after their analysis, the government bought an additional building in Salt Lake City that was tens of millions of dollars more than its listing price. It's surprising, especially because the market for these buildings. It's a very limited market. These things are built for Amazon-type companies, and there aren't that many of these companies that are looking for these buildings. So, a lot of these buildings have been sitting around for several years looking for a buyer. So, the idea that the government would come in, be able to buy these all cash, you would think that they would get a good deal, like a discount.

10:04But instead, in some cases, they're paying a premium. Perhaps that's because they really wanted to kind of get these deals done quickly, but there's not a whole lot of transparency around the deals themselves, so it's hard to say. I want to make sure we mention that we did invite DHS to participate in this conversation. We did not hear back. Doug, earlier this month, DHS announced it's pausing the purchase of any new warehouses and that the department will review the contracts that were signed under Noem. President Trump fired Noem in early March, replaced her with Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma.

10:34He was confirmed by the Senate in March. What might this new leadership mean for these warehouses? Yeah, so the original plan was around 23 warehouses around the country. They've purchased 11. They spent about a billion dollars doing that, so they definitely have a big investment right now at stake on the line. And my sources are telling me they do still plan to very much move forward with contracting, not hiring companies to come in, refurbish, retrofit these buildings, turn them into detention centers, and then have these private companies operate the facilities. So they are trying to move that forward.

11:07However, I think that the change in leadership has meant they're trying to do it a little bit more thoughtfully, a little bit more cautiously. And they're sending signals that communities, I think, are seeing somewhat hopeful, optimistic, that they are trying to engage a little bit more with the local communities, especially some of these places that are really kind of been opposing them and putting up kind of putting the brakes on these plans around various places around the country. Sui, what are your biggest concerns with the plans for these warehouses that will be right-for-fitted into detention centers?

11:38Well, similar to what we saw with facilities or tent cities like Alligator Alcatraz, it is this concept of access to council and the severe conditions that we see. If one stands outside of Alligator Alcatraz, you know, for 30 minutes, you will see trucks coming in, trucks leaving, having to bring all the water, the waste apart. So the fact that warehouses that don't have the infrastructure for individuals to be placed there and that there will be limitations on access to counsel is very concerning. We have to take a quick break, but before we go, we got this email from Stephen. He writes, The first time I heard there was such a thing as prisons run for profit, and that was well into adulthood, I was horrified.

12:20How is it not glaringly obvious that all the wrong things are incentivized by such a system? Coming up, we hear from the city manager of Oakwood, Georgia, a community that's pushing back on an ICE facility being built in that small town. We'll be right back.

12:39Let's get back into our conversation about the rapidly growing footprint of ICE detention centers. We're talking with Doug McMillan. He's a corporate accountability reporter at The Washington Post. And Sui Chung, an immigration lawyer and executive director of the law firm Americans for Immigrant Justice. We're also hearing from you. Elise emails right here in Stafford, Virginia. There is an organization called Stafford for Humanity working to prevent DHS from establishing a center in our community or anywhere. We're actively looking at ways to help our neighbors, holding demonstrations, attending and demonstrating at our Board of Supervisors meetings, and putting pressure on them to speak out against ICE detention centers' warehouses.

13:18And let's bring a new voice in. B.R. White is the city manager of Oakwood, Georgia. The Department of Homeland Security purchased a warehouse in the town to construct a detention center. B.R., welcome to the program. Thanks for having me, Jan. So first, what communications did DHS have with you about this detention center? We've had no communications from DHS nor communications from ICE. The first time we heard about it was Doug McMillan called to ask us about it. And that was when we found out and we tried to reach out to ICE and DHS. But everything's been one-sided. We've contacted or reached out to them, and no one's contacted us back.

14:01What was your initial reaction when Doug reached out to you? We were kind of shocked because the city of Social Circle is not that far from here. and then locating another detention facility here in Hall County, logistically it just didn't make a whole lot of sense to us. But also the location, tracking down the location, Doug gave us that information. And these warehouses were under construction. They weren't even finished yet. And my understanding, they aren't finished now. So I just want to make sure I understand. And you not only didn't know about the purchase of this facility, you had to rely on Doug to find out even where it was?

14:47Yes, he provided us the address and the location. Last month, the Oakwood City Council asked federal officials to put construction of the detention center on hold. Since then, has your city received any updates or communication from DHS about their plans for the facility? We still haven't had any communications. And we welcome the pause, hoping they would reach out to us at some point. Are there any other legal options your city is considering to block this center? There are. We're looking at all options. This pause is going to allow us to explore more routes. and we understand DHS's stance and what our local U.S.

15:35representative, what his stance is, but they also need to understand the issues it's going to cause for the city of Oakwood. And we would just love to be at the table with them just to sit and talk and share with them what our tax loss impact is going to be, what our impact to our sewer capacity will be, and we was like a talk. Yeah. I think you're referring there to Georgia Republican Congressman Andrew Clyde. The projected capacity of this facility would be about 1 ,600 people. So what would that mean for your city's water, your waste, and other systems? Yeah, we're in a unique situation. The city of Oakwood does not have its own sewer treatment plant.

16:22We're fortunate enough to be able to partner with some other cities. to purchase capacity, and we have to pre-purchase the capacity to be able to use their treatment facility. This facility goes to the city of Gainesville, and right now we're within about 60 ,000 gallons per day of reaching our maximum capacity agreement with Gainesville. This facility, at a minimum, would use 180 ,000 gallons per day. I think it'll probably be higher once all is said and done, but that's based upon total inmates per gallon that we've been able to establish nationally. You use the term inmate, and what we're talking about are civil detainments here.

17:11So do you have any sense of what the inside of these facilities look like? Right now, they're just open warehouses. We haven't seen a layout. We haven't seen anything as to what the modifications would be to the buildings. We got this email from Tom, who says, Alligator Alcatraz was constructed using Florida taxpayers' money. No indication that the state will be refunded. $600 million and counting. WUSF reports that Florida spent hundreds of millions of state tax dollars on the center, but it's still awaiting reimbursement from the federal government. Do you have a clear understanding, BR, of the tax impact for your city and county of this facility?

17:52Yeah, our impact to us directly is going to be$113 ,000 a year. To the county, for their fire emergency service, all their M &O is going to be over$221 ,000 a year. And the Board of Education, the Hall County Board of Education is the big loser. their direct impact would be$435 ,000, well, might as well say$436 ,000 per year. And where does that come from? How are you coming up with that number? That would be looking at the sales price and then taking 40 % of that because that's what we tax here in Hall County and Oakwood, 40 % of the value, and then figuring the millage rate for each of the three jurisdictions that are contacts, and that comes up with what it's going to be.

18:51So you're talking to me as a city official, but what are you hearing from residents and council meetings or just around your community about the construction of this facility? Yeah, we've had several council meetings where we had to turn people away because the building's capacity, the council chambers, could not hold the number of people were here. And unfortunately, some had to be outside the building and some had to attend in the hallway. And they were allowed time to speak. And until the last meeting, everyone that had spoken had been in opposition, And the only people in favor of it, I think, were probably diehard MAGA voters.

19:44I mean, Oakwood is a red city with a majority voting for President Trump. So you would assume that many residents are likely to support the president's deportation efforts. Why do you think this facility is not being supported since the Trump administration says it's connected to those efforts? Well, I think part of it is the location. We've got residential subdivisions on two sides of it. The area is in transition from residential to commercial industrial along a state route. And the other reason is we hear people comment, one of the long-term citizens here in Oakwood said, I voted for this administration, but I did not vote for this.

20:30And their concerns were about the conditions that people would be detained in. We are seeing other cities and towns pushing back on the placement of detention centers in their communities. Some ICE deals were scrapped altogether. because of public outcry, including in Minnesota and Missouri. What are your next steps if ICE and DHS continues to build this facility in Oakwood? We will move forward with some of our other options. One is let them know that they're going to be denied sewer capacity up front. And, you know, without giving our full game plan out, we're loading up other options and partnering with some other jurisdictions.

21:20Have you had opportunity to speak with Congressman Andrew Clyde about this facility? We had reached out to him after he had his office here in Gainesville let us know that the detention facility was going to be located here. and then it was closing, but everything that we have asked him has had to go through the Gainesville office. And we've asked for the engineering studies because it's clear on his website that, you know, supposed detailed engineering has been done on these sites, but we haven't seen that. B.R., before we let you go, is there a scenario under which having this center in your community would be acceptable?

22:07I don't think so. You know, if it's forced down our throats, we will adjust to accommodate, but preferably pulling a large industry off the, or a large industrial site off the tax digest just isn't favorable for this small community. We've been able to keep our taxes low for years because of our industrial and commercial growth. And, you know, this will impact it. Well, that's B.R. White. He's the city manager of Oakwood, Georgia. B.R., thanks for speaking with us. Thank you, Jen. Have a good day. You too. Doug, I just want to come to you briefly first. When you reached out to this town initially to say, hey, are you aware this is happening?

22:57What was your reaction to understanding they had no clue that the center was coming to their community? This was all over the country. So we published our first story on Christmas Eve. We started calling people shortly before that. And no place in the country had heard that this was coming to their town. We were the first to share them that information. Some places the reaction was disbelief, where you must have gotten the wrong town, you must have gotten the wrong office. but the reaction slowly has changed in most of these places since then into activism and into, okay, what do we do now? At the government, the local government level, there's been, I think, general frustration and exasperation that they haven't been engaged by the federal government.

23:43They were taken aback by this. They were called by the Washington Post rather than called by the federal government about what they're going to do. And I think initially the reaction and still the reaction from many of these people is just, you know, we don't have a seat at the table. We don't have a hand in talking through the difficult strategic parts of this and how do we actually make this plan come together. But then on the ground, I think you're seeing a lot of people, Republicans and Democrats across the country in these communities who are mobilizing. It started with, you know, some people shared with me that they started sharing signal chats in their communities.

24:14Some people are mobilizing on Facebook. We started seeing a lot of, by January, February, we started a lot of seeing a lot of large outdoor rallies and people attending town council meetings. So I think people are very mobilized on this on the one hand, but on the other hand, they also feel somewhat powerless because like I said before, the federal government priorities take precedence over local laws generally. And so I think that there's a frustration that there's not a whole lot they can do. We are going to see some fights. We are starting to see some fights play out in places like Maryland and Pennsylvania and Michigan and New Jersey, where the governments are starting to fight back, and we'll see what happens with those.

24:52But in many places, I think there's going to be this kind of stubbornness of, well, the federal government wants to do this, and they're going to get it done. Jonah emails, two facilities were purchased in Berks, Pennsylvania, one about 15 minutes from my house. I know lots of people who are very upset about the morality of it, but also how things like waste management will be handled and the loss of taxes for the community. The centers were purchased very quickly, and a sense of surprise and lack of communication and control was felt by many. And Holly emails, I'm one of the many members of the Rapid Response Choir in Maryland that sang in protest outside the federal courthouse in Baltimore to stop the proposed warehouse in Hagerstown, Maryland.

25:28Singing resistance is getting to be a really popular way to respond in resistance to this administration and ICE detention centers. There's an interesting convergence happening here, Doug, and we heard it from BR, that for some people, this is about the morality of the Trump administration's immigration policies. And for some people, it's about taxes. It's about the waste management system. It's about water. It's about taxes. So how are you seeing the politics of this moment show up in interesting ways? Well, one interesting thing is to look at the places that have actually gone, the purchases have been made.

26:08Some of them are Republican towns, like we just heard from one of those. Many of them are liberal leaning areas. One reason for that is because in some places that the administration tried to purchase buildings, state and local Republican leaders went to the administration, went to Kristi Noem, had discussions and got them to cancel their plans. So a senator in Mississippi publicly tweeted a couple months ago that I had discussions with Kristi Noem. She convinced her that it wasn't a good idea to have a warehouse detention center in Mississippi. So we're not going to have it anymore. A similar thing happened in New Hampshire.