With tensions high over federal immigration enforcement, some state and local officials are pushing back against the Trump administration’s attempts to house thousands of detained immigrants in jails, converted warehouses and privately run facilities in their communities.

Federal officials have been scouting cities and counties across the U.S. for places to hold immigrants as they roll out a massive $45 billion expansion of detention facilities financed by President Donald Trump’s recent tax-cutting law.

Immigration Detention

An ICE agent stands outside a warehouse as federal officials tour the facility to consider repurposing it as an ICE detention facility on Jan. 15 in Kansas City, Mo. 

Charlie Riedel, Associated Press

The fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis have amplified an already intense spotlight on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, increasing scrutiny of its plans for new detention sites.

A proposed ICE facility just north of Richmond, Virginia, drew hundreds of people last week to a tense public hearing of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors.

As a prospective ICE detention site in Kansas City, Missouri, became public, elected officials scrambled to pass an ordinance aimed at blocking it. And mayors in Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City announced that property owners won’t be selling or leasing their facilities for immigration detention.

Immigration Detention

Barricades block a drive outside a warehouse as federal officials tour the facility to consider repurposing it as an ICE detention facility on Jan. 15 in Belton, Mo. 

Charlie Riedel, Associated Press

Meanwhile, legislatures in several Democratic-led states pressed forward with bills barring or discouraging ICE facilities. A New Mexico measure targets local government agreements to detain immigrants for ICE. A California proposal seeks to nudge companies running ICE facilities out of the state by imposing a 50% tax on their proceeds.

Number of ICE detention sites has doubled

More than 75,000 immigrants were being detained by ICE as of mid-January, up from 40,000 when Trump took office a year earlier, according to federal data.

In a little over a year, the number of detention facilities used by ICE more than doubled, to 225 sites spread across a combined 48 states and territories. Most of that growth came through existing contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service or deals to use empty beds at county jails.

Trump’s administration now is taking steps to open more large-scale facilities. In January, ICE paid $102 million for a warehouse in Washington County, Maryland, $84 million for one in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and more than $70 million for one in Surprise, Arizona. It also solicited public comment on a proposed warehouse purchase in a flood plain in Chester, New York.

ICE Detention Facility

Melissa Kane, a self-described worried mother, joins protestors clad in red cloaks inspired by the dystopian novel and TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale” as they protest outside a warehouse federal officials are touring to consider repurposing for an ICE detention facility in Kansas City, Mo., on Jan. 15.

Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press

Federal immigration officials have toured large warehouses elsewhere, without releasing many details about the efforts.

State and local governments can decline to lease detention space to ICE, but they generally cannot prohibit businesses and private landowners from using their property for federal immigrant detention centers, said Danielle Jefferis, an associate law professor at the University of Nebraska.

In 2023, a federal court invalidated a California law that barred private immigrant detention facilities, finding it infringed on federal powers. A federal appeals court panel cited similar grounds in July while striking down a New Jersey law that forbade agreements to operate immigrant detention facilities.

Immigration Detention

A man takes photos of a warehouse as federal officials tour the facility to consider repurposing it as an ICE detention facility on Jan. 15 in Belton, Mo. 

Charlie Riedel, Associated Press

After ICE officials recently toured a warehouse in Orlando, Florida, as a prospective site, local officials looked into ways to regulate or prevent it. But City Attorney Mayanne Downs advised them that “ICE is immune from any local regulation that interferes in any way with its federal mandate.”

Officials in Hanover County also asked their attorney to evaluate legal options after the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter confirming its intent to purchase a private property for use as an ICE processing facility. 

Although some residents voiced concerns that an ICE facility could strain the county’s resources, there’s little the county can do to oppose it, said Board of Supervisors Chair Sean Davis.

“The federal government is generally exempt from our zoning regulations,” Davis said.


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Kansas City tries to block new detention site

Despite court rulings elsewhere, the City Council in Kansas City voted in January to impose a five-year moratorium on non-city-run detention facilities. The vote came on the same day ICE officials toured a nearly 1-million-square-foot warehouse as a prospective site.

Manny Abarca, a county lawmaker, said he initially was threatened with trespassing when he showed up but was eventually allowed inside the facility, where a deputy ICE field office director told him they were scouting for a 7,500-bed site.

US Immigration Detention Centers

California Democratic lawmakers announce a bill to tax companies profiting from immigration detention facilities at a news conference in the state Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., on Jan. 28.

Sophie Austin, Associated Press

Abarca is trying to fortify Kansas City’s resistance by proposing a countywide moratorium on permits, zoning changes and development plans for detention facilities not run by the county or a city.

As other ICE proposals have surfaced, officials in Social Circle, Georgia; Merrillville, Indiana; El Paso, Texas; and Roxbury Township, New Jersey, have raised concerns about a lack of water and sewer capacity to transform warehouses into detention sites.

New Mexico targets existing facilities

The Democratic-led New Mexico House passed legislation banning state and local government contracts for ICE detention facilities, sending it to the Senate. Similar bills are pending in Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.

The Otero County Processing Center, 25 miles from downtown El Paso, Texas, is one of three privately run ICE facilities that could be affected by the New Mexico legislation. The county financed its construction in 2007 with the intent to use it as a revenue source, and plans to pay off the remaining $16.5 million debt by 2028.

Otero County Attorney Roy Nichols said the county is prepared to sue the legislature under a state law that prevents impairment of outstanding revenue bonds.


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