On December 24th, with the Washington Post reported that ICE intended to establish detention centers — or “processing centers” — in 23 cities and towns across America. These detention centers would created from existing empty warehouses, and used as processing cent to more efficiently deport illegal aliens out of the country.
With the apparent overreach in Minnesota and elsewhere, and news of unnecessary violence aggression by ICE officers and the Inconsistent application of justice to those perpetrators, Residents in those towns began to band together to determine we could lawfully, peace push back against these plans to warehouses to prisons. Beyond any moral considerations the very real practical considerations in each town include things such as:
- Impact on local police services
- Impact on local fire services
- Impact on local hospitals, especially insofar as some ICE centers have been known to have measles outbreaks and insufficient medical and health care infrastructure
- Environmental impacts including town regulations on water usage
- Limitations of local sewage infrastructure
- Negative impact on home sale values
- Negative reputational impact (e.g., as “the prison town”)
- Reduced real estate tax income for the town
- Impact on local utilities
- Impact on local traffic
For better or worse, ICE has also come under scrutiny for hurried and indiscriminate staffing processes, insufficient training of its officers, a dismissive stance with regard to civil rights, a difficulty discerning the important distinction between the “worst of the worst” (murderers and rapists), “illegal aliens” (a misdemeanor) and legal immigrants, plus a worrying record of shrugging off accountability when matters go awry as in the deaths of two nonviolent protesters in Minneapolis. So having ICE hastily convert warehouses to detention centers can create an understandable unease that the safety and wellbeing of the inmates — and of the local communities — might be a distant secondary concern.
And as ICE’s stated target are to imprison the “worst of the worst,” these neighborhoods are right to be alarmed to have 1,500 to 10,000 such shipped into their neighborhoods.
Why this website?
This site and the resources within are meant to empower these neighborhoods to maximize their autonomy. This national ICE plan has been criticized for a lack of transparency, a lack of collaboration with local town councils, slipshod paperwork submissions, and an imperious attitude towards these communities. Without a resources like this, each town would be left to defend itself if ICE oversteps the law and relevant regulations, in a rush to bring an unwanted and possibly highly-problematic detention facility into being.
Nothing on this site advocates illegal activity, violence, property damage, or impeding the lawful actions of ICE, the DHS, the CBP or their agents.
But every town has a right to thoughtfully manage its own affairs and legacy, its current and future fortunes, and the character they mean to maintain. To this end, this site offers angles of scrutiny that may prove useful in maintaining that autonomy.
ICE Warehouse Resistance 