SAN ANTONIO, Texas — San Antonio City Council members requested an environmental study in what may be the city’s last hope to stop or delay the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) plan to convert an existing warehouse on the city’s southeast side. Council member Jalen McKee-Rodriguez submitted the request with four members’ concurrence in late August.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, ICE awarded GardaWorld Federal Services a $17.3 million contract to renovate the existing warehouse and operate the facility on August 25. The contract calls for the company to modify a warehouse of more than 600,000 square feet on the city’s southeast side that ICE purchased in early February for more than $66 million. The initial fixed-price contract calls for GardaWorld to provide full wraparound services needed to run the facility that will house up to 1,500 detainees awaiting deportation.
The contract to renovate the massive warehouse and operate the detention facility was not hampered by Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ attempts to raise objections through correspondence with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, Ortiz Jones sent a letter to Mullin in April, stating, “My community is not interested in hosting an ICE processing facility.” The latest attempt to derail the project now rests on a request by five sitting council members for a study examining how the planned facility might affect the surrounding community.
Council member Jalen McKee-Rodriguez described his concerns in the Council Consideration Request (CCR), writing, “The construction and operation of a large detention facility may create significant demands on San Antonio’s utility, transportation, environmental, public health, and public safety systems. San Antonio residents should have access to an independent assessment of these impacts, and any associated costs before additional detention facilities are approved or expanded. Independent findings are also necessary to supplement the federal government’s environmental impact assessment and ensure that local impacts are fully evaluated and publicly understood.”
The requests call for CPS Energy and the San Antonio Water System (SAWS), both city-owned public utility providers, to “conduct and publicly present an assessment of the anticipated impacts associated with the operation of the detention facility purchased by DHS off Southeast Loop 410, including impacts on energy demand, water and wastewater systems, and the potential impact on current and future utility rates for San Antonio customers.”
The move to begin the assessment follows a well-known strategy employed in other areas intended to negatively affect ICE’s ability to quickly renovate and open detention and processing centers nationwide. Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental law organization, has promoted challenging the ICE warehouse conversions on environmental grounds through robust social media campaigns across the nation.
On the Earthjustice website, the organization asserts that the projects put nearby water systems at risk and are a “public health disaster” in the making because of sewer system issues. The organization alleges the facilities are part of a goal by the Trump administration to deport one million people per year, and that ICE is “deporting people indiscriminately.”
Earthjustice has coordinated challenges to the ICE warehouse conversions in eleven states, including four projects in Texas located in Baytown, El Paso, Los Fresnos, and the current project in San Antonio.
Strategically, the site is well-suited to carry out ICE’s mission of processing, detaining, and removing illegal aliens due to its proximity to a major international airport, 30 major hospitals, and multiple U.S.-Mexico border ports of entry.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Before retiring, he served as 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.