Protesters rally against planned Maryland immigration detention facility that’s now paused
Protesters rally against planned Maryland immigration detention facility that’s now paused
HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — Horns blared and protesters screamed “Stop ICE!” outside a meeting on the western edge of Maryland where county officials were discussing mundane issues like the solid waste budget.
It’s been like this ever since the Department of Homeland Security bought an 825,000-square-foot (76,645-square-meter) building in Washington County as part of a plan to transform warehouses across the U.S. into detention facilities for tens of thousands of immigrants.
“This is a facility built for packages, not people,” Patrick Dattilio, the founder of an anti- Immigration and Customs Enforcement group called Hagerstown Rapid Response, said as he stood outside the county commission meeting.
The federal government has faced fierce opposition in communities where it spent a total of $1.074 billion for 11 warehouses under a plan that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is reviewing. Washington County is the most welcoming community — a place where officials said they supported ICE, albeit amid whistles and jeers. The processing center there was supposed to be one of the first to open in a facilities project hatched under Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi Noem.
But now DHS’ plan for the Washington County building is paused — mired in a court battle like some of the other warehouse-to-detention projects across the U.S. Questions swirl about whether Mullin will move ahead with the facilities project or chart another course as he pursues President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
County commissioners proclaimed their ‘unwavering support’ for ICE
The sprawling blue-and-white warehouse in Washington County has been the subject of intense debate in part because of the way commissioners voiced their support for ICE.
While repeatedly insisting that their hands were tied because the federal government already bought the building, the commissioners also approved a proclamation during their Feb. 10 meeting declaring their “unwavering support” for DHS and ICE.
The proclamation, which didn’t specifically mention the warehouse purchase, was met with so much booing and yelling that the commission president cleared the room.
The county wanted something, too. It forwarded the proclamation to Noem the next day in an email identifying hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of sewer, airport and highway upgrades that it said were needed, according to a public records request received by local resident Ethan Wechtaluk, who’s running for Congress in the district that includes the warehouse.
ICE, flush with cash from a massive congressional appropriation, has since signed a contract worth $113 million to renovate the building for 500 to 1,500 detainees, but a judge temporarily halted work after Maryland’s attorney general sued. A hearing is scheduled for April 15.
May you like
County commissioners did not respond to email or telephone requests for comment. County administrator Michelle Gordon in a statement said the commissioners were declining all interview requests.
Many residents of the county — a place Civil War buffs come to visit the Antietam battlefield before making their way to nearby Gettysburg — are outraged both because they have moral objections to the facility and because they didn’t find out about the purchase beforehand.
