ACLU Maryland Statement on DHS Purchase of Hagerstown Warehouse for ICE Facility

The ACLU of Maryland is deeply concerned by, and opposed to, the federal government’s decision to purchase, at a cost of $102 million, a massive warehouse near Hagerstown, Maryland, to use as a detention facility. The purchase is part of a reckless and unconscionable plan to more than double the number of people Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can jail around the country.

Despite repeated claims to the contrary, most people held in immigration detention are not criminals. Nearly three in four of all current detainees have no criminal convictions. Immigration detention is a civil system, not a criminal one, yet it is increasingly being used to jail people indiscriminately, including longtime Maryland residents, who are parents, children, neighbors, workers, and students.

An increase in ICE activity in American cities has reaped deadly consequences for members of those communities, including what our country has witnessed with the recent murders of Keith Porter Jr., Renee Good, and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis. Maryland does not want or need more ICE facilities to facilitate the expanded campaign of brutality and terror.

Congress has poured obscene amounts of money into the Department of Homeland Security, enough to justify spending over a hundred million dollars to turn a warehouse into a place of confinement for 1,500 human beings, laying bare the cruelty and moral bankruptcy of the plan. It also raises questions about the significant local impact it will have on roads, power utilities, and water infrastructure – especially when the County’s water supply is under strain.

Housing so many people in a warehouse not designed for that purpose will present a public health crisis and strain local health resources. It will also have implications for the State and county’s ability to adequately staff their own prisons and jails. In addition, we know how inhumane these facilities are. A recently leaked video of an ICE processing facility in Baltimore has gone viral showing just how inhumane these conditions are – with people seen lying on filthy floors with emergency blankets, without access to bathrooms, and without enough food. Those conditions mirror problems found in ICE detention across the country, including ICE staff falsely labeling a homicide as a suicide. Having more detention beds only incentivizes the need to fill them by increasing lawless enforcement on the immigrant community across the state.

We oppose an enforcement agenda that seeks to dehumanize people, strip them of legal protections, narrow eligibility for lawful status, and detain as many immigrants as possible without regard for their inherent dignity, fundamental rights, or individual circumstances. Detention is not being used as a last resort, but as a default tool of inhumane immigration policy—one that separates families, undermines due process, and inflicts lasting trauma.