A day earlier, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown had filed an emergency motion calling for the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security to cease conversion of its purchased 825,000-sq-ft warehouse into the detention center. The motion followed the state’s Feb. 23 legal challenge stating that the conversion is being done without required environmental reviews, public input or cooperation with the state. 

“Federal immigration authorities are barreling past their legal obligations in an attempt to build an immigration detention center as quickly 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 turn over administrative records about conditions of an existing detention center in Baltimore. “The conditions inside the Baltimore holding cells have been dangerous, inhumane, and unlawful—and ICE and DHS have done everything in their power to keep us from finding out just how bad they are," he said. "The agencies have stonewalled 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 firm 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 tracking federal contract awards, with the potential to expand the award to $642 million. The Maryland warehouse is one of many across the U.S. that Homeland Security bought with funds authorized by the budget bill signed into law last July. 

Zoning, Other Rules Short-circuited

Governors in states where warehouse conversions are also being legally challenged, which include Michigan and New Jersey, have noted that the repurposed buildings could and likely would run afoul of building codes, zoning requirements and state laws. 

The methods that the department uses to procure and oversee work may also violate its own internal protocols, says Andy Gordon, former counsel to Obama-era Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

“There were certain basic requirements for detention centers [and currently] a lot of discussion that certainly the center they're proposing to put up in Surprise. Arizona doesn't meet the standards,” he told ENR, adding that the way Homeland Security procured the contract for [that] facility may also have been an effort to skirt department requirements for detention centers.  The Arizona warehouse is about 400,000 sq ft., with the 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 “remain in the dark about [department] plans and have grave concerns.” She noted her authority to challenge the new facility’s development under public nuisance laws. 

“I have no doubt that there's going to be litigation," Gordon said. "There are a lot of different avenues to pursue in litigation, and I don’t know which ones they will follow, but I’m certain there’s going to be lawsuits."

GardaWorld, a contractor that worked on the south Florida detention center dubbed by administration officials as “Alligator Alcatraz,” was awarded up to a $313-million contract to retrofit and operate the Surprise, Ariz. facility, for its first year. That is extendable through 2029 for a total cost of up to $704 million. 

The mass detention facility in the Florida Everglades continues to operate and accept new detainees, despite an August ruling by a federal judge barring further construction at the site in a lawsuit filed by project opponents, which include Friends of the Everglades and Earthjustice. But the state appealed the ruling, allowing the center to remain open while the litigation plays out.  

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers from Arizona, including Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), conservative ally of President Donald Trump, have questioned the secrecy behind the procurement and conversion of warehouse facilities to detention camps without city and state input. In a Feb. 4 letter to federal Homeland Security officials, Gosar said that although he supported the mission of deporting people who are living in the U.S. illegally, the department still has obligations to cooperate with local and state officials. “Even when detention capacity is necessary, it must be implemented responsibly, with appropriate review and open communication,” he said.

Congressional House and Senate lawmakers introduced the Respect for Local Communities Act Feb. 23 that would require ICE to seek 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 towns like Merrimack, New Hampshire and across the country," bill sponsor Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said in a statement. "They were never consulted about ICE’s plans, and they don’t want the chaos of new detention facilities in their communities.” 

Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) is bill co-sponsor on the House side. The measure currently has six cosponsors.