ICE Looks to Juice Texas Real Estate Holdings

It’s not just the blue states: Some local leaders in the Lone Star State are turning a cold shoulder to their federal colleagues with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The federal agency, currently under fire for its hand in civilian killings in Minneapolis, reportedly bought a 1-million-square-foot warehouse in the Dallas suburb of Hutchins, with plans to turn it into a detention center, the Washington Post first reported in December.

The facility would be able to hold up to 9,500 people, rattling a city with a population under 8,000. Hutchins Mayor Mario Vasquez told local ABC affiliate WFAA that he’s opposed to the plan, saying warehouses in the town of 8,000 “are for storage, not for holding people.”

“Who wants an ICE facility in their backyard?” he asked rhetorically when pressed about his opposition.

ICE hasn’t confirmed the purchase, but the Clergy League for Emergency Action and Response said the transaction and location, at 950 North I-45, are an open secret, D Magazine reported.

Elsewhere in the Texas Triangle, ICE is eyeing a 640,000-square-foot warehouse in San Antonio, the San Antonio Business Journal reported. The warehouse has been unoccupied for almost three years. The source that confirmed ICE is considering the property at 542 SE Loop 410 also told the outlet that the agency is scouting property in McAllen, on the U.S.-Mexico border..

Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert vowed to fight the purchase.

“These facilities are a front for more nefarious things to come if we don’t stop them,” he said in a statement to the San Antonio Business Journal.

There’s no record of a transaction, but the rumors come amid a flood of reports that ICE is juicing up its real estate holdings across the country.

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