Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump From Converting Warehouse Into ICE Facility
A federal judge issued an injunction Wednesday blocking the Trump administration from moving forward with plans to convert a logistics warehouse in Western Maryland into a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Brendan A. Hurson amounts to a legal victory — though perhaps just a temporary one — for opponents of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. The Department of Homeland Security has said the site near the small city of Hagerstown could house anywhere from 500 to 1,500 detainees and help boost its deportation efforts.
Hurson’s injunction allows DHS to erect a protective fence around the site and make some repairs to the warehouse, but it forbids the government from building out a detention facility while the underlying litigation plays out.
The Hagerstown warehouse is one of several industrial sites around the country that Trump officials quietly scooped up with an eye toward building out the capacity for their deportation campaign. The plans have drawn bipartisan blowback in many communities, with residents raising moral objections as well as environmental and health concerns.
Maryland’s Democratic attorney general sued the administration to stop its plans for the Hagerstown site, arguing it hadn’t carried out the appropriate environmental reviews required under federal law. Hurson found that the state was likely to succeed in that challenge.
In the Wednesday hearing, the state’s attorneys described a rushed process in which DHS plowed ahead with a “dangerous experiment” before conducting the analyses necessary to ensure the detention facility plan wouldn’t tax local water and sewer infrastructure. They found a receptive audience in Hurson.
“You already signed a $600 million contract and you bought the place for $100 million,” the judge told attorneys from the Justice Department at one point. “I’m sorry to be so incredulous about it. But in this situation things went completely backwards, and we’re doing the [environmental analysis] at the end when it should have been done at the beginning.”
Attorneys from the Justice Department argued that the warehouse conversion was necessary for the administration to deport undocumented immigrants with final orders of removal. But Hurson found that unpersuasive, noting that courts around the country have found the administration unlawfully detaining people.
Outside the courtroom, Maryland residents and community leaders who oppose what’s become known as the “ICE warehouse” said they were relieved the plans were blocked for now.
“This is the outcome we all were hoping for,” said Taj Smith, head of the NAACP chapter for Washington County, where the ICE facility would be.
Tatiana Santos, a resident of nearby Frederick County who came out for the hearing, said the injunction was an important step in slowing the “lawlessness” of ICE.
“I think what we’re trying to do is really just throw sand in the gears as much as possible,” she said. “That’s the point of all this: Little by little to slow the train down, to help keep our communities and our neighbors safe.”
