Local communities shut down Trump admin efforts to expand ICE detention centers

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Last edited Mon Feb 2, 2026, 02:37 PM - Edit history (1)

Rachel Maddow has done several reports on the efforts of local communities to block the opening of ICE/DHS prisons in local communities. I am glad to see other media sources to start reporting on the efforts of ICE/DHS to open numerous new prison/concentration camps.

Local communities shut down Trump admin efforts to expand ICE detention centers

— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) 2026-01-30T20:00:04Z

https://www.rawstory.com/ice-2675062021/

Multiple communities have hit back hard against the Trump administration as it seeks to expand its capacity to detain migrants across the nation, with at least one successful in shutting down an effort to turn a 26-acre warehouse into a migrant processing center, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is working to convert industrial buildings into detention centers across 23 different towns, an effort that would expand its detention capacity by 80,000.

One such effort materialized last month after DHS altered a plan to purchase a 26-acre warehouse and transform it into a migrant processing center. News of the planned purchase spread fast, and sparked outrage among locals, outrage strong enough that the purchase ultimately fell through.

Multiple communities have hit back hard against the Trump administration as it seeks to expand its capacity to detain migrants across the nation, with at least one successful in shutting down an effort to turn a 26-acre warehouse into a migrant processing center, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is working to convert industrial buildings into detention centers across 23 different towns, an effort that would expand its detention capacity by 80,000.

One such effort materialized last month after DHS altered a plan to purchase a 26-acre warehouse and transform it into a migrant processing center. News of the planned purchase spread fast, and sparked outrage among locals, outrage strong enough that the purchase ultimately fell through.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. A lot of towns passing laws to not let ICE build detention center in their town, per Rachael Maddow

Link to tweet

[gab13by13]

2. Stop complaining about the MSM being right wing,

If I see a cat, I call it a cat. If Krasnov says it's a dog, I still call it a cat.

They are not detention centers, they are concentration camps.

[jmbar2]

3. Newport, OR was one of the towns covered by Rachel. We thought they were gone. They're back

ICE tried to take over our local Coast Guard station and airport to build an ICE holding facility for deportations. The community turned out in force against, as did all of our elected Representatives and Senators. We thought they had moved on, but just learned that they will begin construction in May.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official wrote in court filings Tuesday that the agency intended to build a temporary holding and processing center in Newport, Oregon, confirming rumors that have swirled through the coastal community for months.

Work to prepare an ICE holding and processing facility was halted on Dec. 4 after the Coast Guard said the airport was no longer available. That’s the same day Lincoln County and the nonprofit Newport Fisherman’s Wives asked for an injunction preventing the Coast Guard from relocating the helicopter.

Later that month, Aiken issued a temporary injunction ordering the Coast Guard to keep the helicopter based in Newport.

“ICE has no plan or intention to begin construction or open an ICE facility in the City of Newport or at Newport Municipal between now and until May 1, 2026,” Ferguson continued in his statement.

Very sneaky statement

https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/28/ice-officials-confirms-newport-detention-center-efforts-in-court-filing/

[Rebl2]

4. Kansa City, MO

is another city they. They want to convert an old Amazon warehouse or distribution center into a detention center. The city has put a moratorium on allowing buildings to be converted to be used in this way. They also said they won’t allow any buildings like this to get permits to be converted into detention centers. Interestingly, KC is going to be one of the city’s hosting the World Cup.

[leftstreet]

5. DURec

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. Rachel Maddow has done some great reporting on the efforts of local communities to block ICE prisons

Link to tweet

?s=20

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. D.H.S. is setting up a huge network of detention camps.

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. Rachel Maddow-Across the country, Americans are saying no to ICE prisons in their communities

From Virginia to Oklahoma to Texas, Americans are refusing to go along with Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Across the country, Americans are saying no to ICE prisons in their communities

www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Mike Walker (@newnarrative.bsky.social) 2026-02-03T22:03:38.976Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/americans-protest-ice-detention-facilities-trump-mass-deportation

On Jan. 21, the Department of Homeland Security wrote a letter to officials in Hanover County, Virginia, informing them that the government would be building an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the town of Ashland.

For context, Hanover is a reliably red county just outside Richmond. Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris by 26 points there in 2024.

Specifically, the government told the Hanover officials that it wanted to build out the facility on a former cattle farm, where there is now a 500,000-square-foot warehouse constructed by a company owned by Canadian billionaire Jim Pattison.....

Then, less than 48 hours later, Pattison’s company put out a one-line statement: “The transaction to sell our industrial building in Ashland, Virginia will not be proceeding.”.....

If they build them, they will fill them up.

If history tells us anything, it’s that once facilities like this are built in these kinds of numbers, while they may start as immigration detention centers, they are available to the government to use indefinitely for whatever it wants to do.

But everywhere they are trying to build these things, including in some of the country’s reddest states, people are pulling out all the stops to prevent them from being built. And if the country stops the government from building them, it will never again have this kind of momentum to try to construct a constellation of prison camps outside the reach of the law.

Rachel has been covering this issue for the last couple of months. Last night was a great episode and I am glad that people are standing up and blocking these ICE prisons