REFRAMING PUBLIC SAFETY
How Communities Can Stop ICE Detention
The Problem
At a time when many people are struggling to make ends meet, Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over $170 billion to fuel its mass deportation agenda, including $45 billion to expand detention. Across the country, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency within DHS, is trying to acquire and develop sites like closed prisons and warehouses to put thousands of our community members in detention because of their immigration status. ICE leadership have even said their goal is to carry out detention and deportations “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” Over 70,000 people from our communities are currently in ICE detention, and DHS wants to make it possible to detain tens of thousands more.
Immigrants belong in the South, and Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) strongly opposes policies that produce family separation, violations of people’s rights, and communities living in fear. SCSJ believes that communities are safest when people have access to health care, affordable housing, educational opportunities, and good jobs. We know detention expansion is not about safety in the South — it’s about targeting and terrorizing communities because of their race and ethnicity.
In 2025, 32 people died in ICE custody, and so far in 2026 someone has died in ICE detention every week. Abuse, medical neglect, lack of food and other shocking conditions are only going to get worse the larger this system of detention and deportation grows. Children, elders, and people with disabilities are at even higher risk. Across the country, tireless and brave lawyers and legal organizations like our friends at Carolina Migrant Network are fighting every day for the rights and dignity of people in removal proceedings and immigration detention.
The power, money and violence driving this agenda can feel overwhelming. Yet everywhere that ICE tries to build new detention facilities, people are standing up for each other and getting organized. These stories show how communities can fight back.
Local Governments and Elected Officials Can Stand Up to DHS
While the federal government can do many things without the approval of local or state government, there are still many avenues for elected officials to take action. In Byhalia, Mississippi, residents organized when they learned an industrial warehouse was being considered for a detention center that would hold 8,500 people. Community groups held a demonstration outside as ICE officials toured the warehouse. The outcry led a state senator to write to DHS opposing the facility, and they dropped the project. In Elkridge, Maryland, the county government revoked a building permit for retrofitting an office building after the community found out it was a planned detention site and passed a moratorium on privately owned detention facilities. In Social Circle, Georgia, the local government locked the water utility at a warehouse purchased by ICE after they refused to answer questions about the impact of the facility on local infrastructure. And in Oakwood, Georgia, residents organized against a detention project and the city council passed a resolution requesting DHS stop planning and construction, saying “The City of Oakwood urges and invites ... all other local governments in the region to adopt similar resolutions requesting transparency, environmental review, and a temporary stay of federal action.”
Community Pressure on Property Owners Works
A core feature of the federal government’s plan is to convert privately owned warehouses built for storage into ICE facilities holding thousands of people. Across the country, communities have successfully appealed to owners of these warehouses to do what’s in the best interest of the local community and not to work with ICE. Residents in Hutchins, Texas, organized for weeks after learning of a warehouse project where 9,500 people would be held in detention, in a town with a population of 8,000. Their city council responded to the local concern and came out in unanimous opposition, and the property owners rejected the sale and said they would not sell or lease any of their properties to DHS. In Ashland, Virginia, hundreds rallied against the planned sale of an industrial warehouse at a Hanover County board meeting. The company planning to sell the warehouse faced calls for a boycott, as well as suspended media buys. In response to the pressure from the community, the building’s owner cancelled the planned sale.
Legal Interventions Can Support Communities Targeted by Detention
In Washington County, Maryland, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that stops construction of a warehouse detention site while a state lawsuit proceeds. After western Maryland communities organized against the project, the Maryland Attorney General filed a lawsuit to stop the construction of the facility, alleging that DHS has violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act. In North Carolina, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to reveal a number of potential detention sites. The ACLU’s FOIA has made it possible for residents to be informed and start organizing in the cities targeted by these projects.
Communities Are Working Together and Learning From Each Other
Everywhere the federal government has tried to build new detention centers, they have faced the resistance of everyday people who know these facilities are bad for the people inside them and for the communities where they are built. As new groups form to fight detention expansion, they are learning from communities who have already been organizing to shut down immigration facilities plagued by abuse, death and civil rights violations. Detention Watch Network has resources that bring together the wisdom and experience of organizers around the country into toolkits people can use to fight for their communities.