Maryland Sues Over Detention Facility At Warehouse DHS Bought For $102M

Maryland’s attorney general is fighting in court to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement from converting a warehouse into a 1,500-bed detention center. 

Attorney General Anthony Brown filed the suit alleging that federal immigration agencies didn’t adhere to mandatory review processes before paying $102.4M to buy an 826K SF property outside Williamsport as part of a massive push to expand the government’s immigrant detention facility footprint. 

“In their zeal to purchase and convert the Williamsport Warehouse into an immigration detention facility, Defendants have run roughshod over federal law and trampled on the State’s interests,” Brown wrote in the civil suit, filed against the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Todd Lyons, the senior ICE official who has become the public face of the agency's immigration enforcement operations. 

Brown is asking the court to vacate the government’s purchase of the warehouse and to block President Donald Trump’s administration from moving ahead on a plan to retrofit the property into a detention facility. The White House is pushing for 3,000 daily arrests of people suspected of being in the country without proper authorization.  

Maryland accuses the Trump administration of pushing ahead on the project without a requisite environmental review, public participation or state consultation. The project has the potential to overwhelm existing sewage infrastructure and threaten protected animal species while increasing traffic and air pollution, Brown wrote in the court filing. 

DHS said those arguments are a pretense designed to conceal the state’s outright objections to the project. 

“Let’s be honest about this. This isn’t about the environment. It’s about trying to stop President Trump from making America safe again,” a DHS spokesperson said in an email to Bisnow. 

DHS has consistently pushed back against characterizations that the facilities it plans to operate are warehouses and said Tuesday they would operate as “very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”

Under Noem’s leadership, DHS is planning to spend more than $38B acquiring industrial buildings to house thousands of immigrants awaiting deportation. A Bisnow investigation uncovered more than $700M in DHS deals to buy eight properties across six states. 

ICE is also working to open more than 150 new field offices to support the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations division, tasked with immigration enforcement activities, and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, the agency’s legal arm.

The 54-acre Williamsport property was sold on Jan. 22 by an affiliate of Washington, D.C.-based Fundrise in January. The government has also purchased or is negotiating to buy properties around the country from other large, well-known firms, including Trammell Crow, Rockefeller Group, Blue Owl Capital and PCCP.

“DHS and ICE appear to be moving at breakneck speed to implement its agenda, showing a complete disregard for federal law,” Brown wrote in the Maryland case.

Rep. McClain Delaney, the Democrat whose district includes Williamsport, also lambasted the plan in January, calling it an unacceptably “covert acquisition” that was carried out without transparency, community input or accountability. 

The backlash echoes a growing chorus of complaints and objections from communities around the country where ICE is planning to open new facilities. At least eight planned acquisitions have fallen through, with most facing intense public and political scrutiny. 

Canadian firm Jim Pattison Developments said it wouldn’t sell a vacant 552K SF distribution center in Virginia to the government after news of the potential deal spurred public outcry. A few days earlier, the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City, David Holt, released a statement telling residents that a local warehouse owner had decided not to sell their property to DHS. 

“I commend the owners for their decision and thank them on behalf of the people of Oklahoma City,” Holt said. 

Federal officials say their controversial immigration crackdown has led to nearly 400,000 arrests in the past year. The White House says it’s focused on finding hardened criminals to deport, but less than 14% of the people who have been detained were charged with or convicted of a violent criminal offense, according to a DHS document reported by CBS News. 

“ICE is targeting criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members and more. 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.,” the DHS spokesperson said Tuesday.