SAN ANTONIO, Texas — In a bid to keep a massive U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (ICE) processing and detention facility from opening in the Alamo city, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones is pleading with DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to reconsider the agency’s plans. In a letter sent to Mullin last week, Ortiz Jones says, My community is not interested in hosting an ICE processing facility.”
In the letter, Mayor Ortiz Jones complained about a lack of information sharing between her office and ICE, adding, Despite numerous attempts, neither my office nor the city staff have received formal notification regarding ICE’s reported purchase and potential use of a 640,000+ square foot warehouse located at 542 SE Loop 410 Access Rd, San Antonio, Texas.”
Wednesday’s latest correspondence is the second letter sent to the department regarding the plans to open a processing and detention center in San Antonio in recent months. In late February, Ortiz Jones wrote to former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, expressing “strong opposition” to the proposed facility and requesting a meeting to discuss its impact on the city.
Breitbart Texas traveled to the warehouse purchased in early February for more than $66 million. According to documents released by Bexar County officials, the buyer was listed as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, D.C.
Mayor Ortiz Jones is joined in her opposition to the planned facility by Bexar County commissioners, who approved a resolution in early March voicing their concerns with the planned facility that has yet to open.
The facility is a “very well structured” detention facility with space to process and detain at least 1,500 detainees, according to ICE. Strategically, the site is well-suited to carry out the agency’s mission of processing, detaining, and removing illegal aliens due to its proximity to a major airport, hospitals, and the U.S.-Mexico border.
There are nearly 30 major hospitals in San Antonio. Brooks Army Medical Center, a Level I Trauma Center, is located just five miles from the proposed facility. The San Antonio International Airport is less than 15 miles from the site, providing easy access for ICE aircraft to transport detainees and facilitate removal. In addition, several land ports of entry, including Eagle Pass and Laredo, are less than 200 miles away and offer land repatriation opportunities to the agency.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, the purchase is part of an ICE “Detention and Reengineering” plan that will expand capacity and speed deportation of criminal aliens. The initiative, according to an internal ICE memorandum, is aimed at fixing the immigration system’s chronic failures that include overcrowding in current facilities, slow transfers, and deportation backlogs.
According to the memo, published on the New Hampshire governor’s website in February, the detention reengineering plan includes “the acquisition and renovation of eight large-scale detention centers and 16 processing sites, as well as the acquisition of 10 existing ‘turnkey’ facilities where ICE ERO already operates.”
According to the document, the estimated total cost to acquire the facilities and implement the plan is $38.3 billion. The funds are allocated to the agency through “One Big Beautiful Bill” legislation.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Before his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyClarkBBTX.
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