A new immigration facility planned for Surprise, Ariz. faces some opposition, despite assurances the detention center won’t be a prelude to enforcement activities.
Mayor Kevin Sartor said the facility, which will open inside a vacant warehouse, will “house single adults only” for short-term stays.
Sartor made his comments during a press conference on Monday regarding the center, which is nearly 420,000 square feet and can hold up to 1,500 beds.
A document from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement show this type of facility is “capable of securely and humanely housing 7,000 to 10,000 detainees for periods averaging less than 60 days.” Earlier this month, ICE awarded a $313 million contract to GardaWorld Federal Services LLC to renovate the warehouse.
Sartor said he planned to share the information about the detention center with Surprise residents at the April 7 city council meeting, but decided the residents and the media needed details sooner.
Sartor said the city’s responsibility regarding the U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement facility is “straightforward,” noting it is to “protect the community, ensure transparency and get the answers” the city needs from its federal partners.
Surprise first learned about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security purchasing the warehouse in January. He said the city’s “No. 1 goal has been to obtain answers and protect [its] community.”
The mayor said Surprise city leadership met with officials from DHS and ICE in Washington, D.C. He said they discussed many topics, including the detention facility’s impact on its community, zoning, legal authority and environmental impacts. He added that DHS said the facility would be a processing center where illegal immigrants would stay for three to seven days. Then they would be transferred to larger detention facilities in El Paso or Salt Lake City or deported.
DHS estimates “operations will begin with approximately 250 individuals per week with a cap of occupied beds of 542,” the mayor said.
Sartor said illegal immigrants will begin appearing at the federal detention facility within the next three to six months. He said there would be about 250 individuals housed there per week with a maximum of 542 occupied beds.
Sartor also quoted DHS saying no illegal immigrants would be released into the community.
“This facility will not trigger local immigration enforcement activities,” the mayor said.
Sartor noted DHS will not have “operations in sensitive areas such as schools, churches or senior citizens.”
At the press conference, Sartor admitted the city can’t do much to stop the federal government’s effort to open a new detention center.
“While we cannot stop a federal agency from purchasing land, we can work to mitigate their impact to Suprise,” he said.
“The federal government purchased the land. Whether we want it here or not, they’re here,” the mayor said.
DHS has agreed to provide tours to city leadership and create a community relations board “with city-appointed representation,” he added.
Sartor said his “primary takeaway” from his meeting with DHS is that the federal agency is “committed to timely and consistent coordination with the city moving forward.”
The mayor said the federal government is working with the city to recover property taxes it would have collected from an operating distribution center. The city would have received around $300,000 from the property, Sartor said.
Brent Peak, the co-chair of Northwest Valley Indivisible, a group opposing the detention facility, told The Center Square that the organization does not trust “ICE to stand by anything they are currently promising. It’s ridiculous to assume that a facility that is the size of seven football fields is only intended to hold about 500 single men.”
“That would take up less than 10% of the square footage,” he added.
“Mayor Sartor went to Washington to get answers from DHS. He came back with promises,” Peak told The Center Square.
“They’ll reimburse the city for lost tax revenue. Their agents will stay inside the facility. They want to be good neighbors. Ronald Reagan called it – ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,"” he noted.
Peak said Surprise “should be preparing for their broken promises, escalation and tactics that are fundamentally incompatible with this community.”
He added that Northwest Valley Indivisible is asking Sartor and the city council for a resolution at its April 7 meeting.
“We want the mayor to stand with the residents of Surprise in formal opposition to this facility,” Peak said.
“The people of Surprise were never consulted. They were never notified. They were never given a voice. April 7 is their chance to be heard – and it is Mayor Sartor’s chance to decide if he stands with them,” he added.
The new detention facility is located within a three-mile radius of 15 schools and a cheerleading academy and will be in the “middle of a massive residential area,” Peak said.
“This is a massive warehouse not meant for humans,” he added. “It is meant for products to be shipped.”
On top of this, Peak told The Center Square that people have environmental concerns about the new facility. The public has not seen “the environmental reviews” DHS has completed, he noted.
Peak also said people are concerned about water and electricity usage, which he described as being the “equivalent of thousands of households when it comes to water and electricity usage.”
At the city’s press conference, Sartor said Surprise has “an excellent water portfolio” that can “absorb the impact” of the new detention center, adding that the city is not concerned about water usage.
But Peak noted another reason for opposition to the detention facility is that Surprise residents don’t want a “federal law enforcement presence.”
“The community supports a strong border policy, but the way immigration enforcement is being handled hasn’t been done in a way that the community can support, and they don’t want to see that coming to Surprise,” he noted.
Peak described Surprise as an “extremely conservative area.” The city is split between Arizona’s 8th and 9th congressional districts. Both districts are represented by Republicans: Paul Gosar and Abe Hamadeh.
According to Peak, Northwest Valley Indivisible is also requesting the mayor and city council join in any potential legal action that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes takes against the detention facility “to slow it down or stop it.”
Mayes told The Center Square via email that she is “deeply concerned about the impact this facility will have on Surprise and its residents.”
“My office never received a response from DHS to the letter we sent asking a series of questions about the planning for this facility. We will continue to monitor the situation and are considering all legal options,” she said.
In February, Mayes sent a letter to then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem regarding her concern about the incoming Surprise ICE detention facility. Former U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, is the new DHS secretary.
The Center Square reached out to Hamadeh’s office and the DHS, but did not hear back before press time.
