Federal officials plan to offload some warehouses purchased for immigrant detention

By — Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press By — Ryan Foley, Associated Press Ryan Foley, Associated Press By — Rebecca Santana, Associated Press Rebecca Santana, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/federal-officials-plan-to-offload-some-warehouses-purchased-for-immigrant-detention Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Federal officials plan to offload some warehouses purchased for immigrant detention Politics Jun 24, 2026 8:15 AM EDT U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is retreating from a plan to use warehouses to hold up to 10,000 people on a single site, jettisoning a key piece of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's $38-billion plan to rapidly expand detention capacity this year. The federal government, which was sued by Michigan and a Detroit suburb, informed a judge Monday that a warehouse purchased in Romulus will be sold. Plans also are unraveling in Social Circle, Georgia, and the El Paso suburb of Socorro, local officials said. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. The three cities are among 11 where the federal government spent a combined $1.074 billion on warehouses. The New York Times first reported last week that federal immigration officials now plan to get rid of seven of the 11 warehouses — either giving them to other federal agencies or selling them outright. DHS didn't confirm the reports but said in a statement that it is "moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners." Pushback to warehouse purchases was immediate "Wildly foolhardy" is how Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former ICE official under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations described the plans to convert the buildings into immigrant detention. One issue was that Noem's purchases were largely carried out of public view and angered communities that were caught by surprise. Some only learned about ICE's ambitions after the agency bought or leased space for detainees. After Noem was fired, her replacement, Markwayne Mullin, quickly paused the purchase of new warehouses. Objections came from Republicans and Democrats alike Some were opposed on moral grounds to ICE's presence in their neighborhoods, while others questioned whether the facilities would be a drain on local resources, such as sewer and water systems. Seven federal lawsuits were filed, and regulatory roadblocks created hassles elsewhere. Meanwhile, questions about how much DHS paid for some warehouses triggered an internal audit. The agency shelled out double what the New Jersey warehouse was valued at in tax records and nearly five times more than the assessed value of the Social Circle warehouse. Trickler-McNulty, the former ICE official, said ICE does have a few facilities that it owns that it inherited from its predecessor agency, th