For up to 80,000 people ICE buys huge industrial buildings for internment camps
Billions for his immigration policy: according to a report, the Trump administration has acquired industrial buildings in at least eight states to convert them into detention camps.
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- According to a media report, the Trump administration has acquired industrial buildings in at least eight US states that are to be converted into detention camps for migrants.
- Up to 80,000 detainees are to be housed in the buildings in future.
- Experts are already warning that it will be difficult to comply with state standards for accommodation in the buildings.
- The plans are meeting with resistance in the affected areas.
The US immigration authority ICE has been given a huge budget by the Trump administration. Two billion US dollars alone are said to have been spent on recruiting new agents.
However, the dozens of detention camps that have already been set up or are planned also swallow up large sums of money. According to a report in the Washington Post, the Trump administration has acquired industrial buildings in at least eight states with a view to converting them into detention centers in the future.
According to the report, the Department of Homeland Security purchased two large buildings this month alone - one in Maryland for 102 million dollars and another in Arizona for 70 million dollars. In recent weeks, ICE officials have also begun notifying property owners and local authorities in several other cities of their interest in certain properties.
Detention camps in industrial areas
The former industrial sites are to be converted into detention camps, which are to accommodate up to 80,000 detainees in future. Experts are already warning that it will be difficult to meet certain federal standards, for example with regard to an adequate water supply.
Officials in the towns affected, such as Social Circle and Roxbury, have already expressed concerns about the inadequate water supply for the planned facilities. If water is not available from a municipal source, a state lab would have to test samples to meet drinking water standards, according to federal standards.
For example, a building in Roxbury, New Jersey, draws its groundwater from a small town that already uses almost its entire daily limit. Another proposed site is a warehouse in Oklahoma City that could house up to 1,500 people and is not far from an elementary school and a Pentecostal church. In addition, a former auto parts distribution center in Chester, New York, is said to get unbearably hot during the summer months.
Dozens of violations of federal standards
Yet ICE is already struggling to meet standards at some existing facilities. Last September, for example, its own inspectors found 60 violations of federal standards at Camp East Montana. This is a collection of large tents that were erected within a few months on a piece of desert in El Paso. With 3800 inmates, the facility is now the largest ICE detention center in the country.
According to the report, most of the buildings under consideration are located in areas designated for industrial use. They are mostly vacant shell buildings constructed near highways and airports and contain little more than walls, a thick concrete floor and a ceiling supported by dozens of steel beams.
"Keeping criminals off the streets of America"
In the affected areas, the Trump administration's plans have met with little approval, with residents in at least 15 communities staging protests, according to the report. At city council meetings, local elected officials were inundated with questions about the planned facilities.
"I'm not sure this is a humane way to detain people," said Quinton Lucas, mayor of Kansas City, about the plans to convert a warehouse there into an ICE facility with space for up to 7500 people. In mid-January, the city council passed a five-year ban on all new non-municipal detention centers.
"Planning a detention center behind closed doors is not governance - it's intimidation," Democratic Representative April McClain Delaney said.
Meanwhile, Tricia McLaughlin, Deputy Secretary of DHS, declined to comment on compliance with federal standards. Instead, she announced in martial terms that the agency "has new resources to expand detention centers to keep these criminals off the streets of America." However, it should come as "no surprise" that ICE is making arrests in various US states and is actively working to "expand detention capacity".
