Outrage erupted last month when Oklahoma City residents learned of plans to convert a vacant warehouse into an immigration processing facility, demonstrating how communities find few resources at their disposal when combating the construction of ICE detention facilities.

Making matters worse was the secrecy of the federal government: City leaders received no communication from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement aside from a mandated disclosure related to historic preservation.

Planning a major development without city input is antithetical to the in-depth, sometimes arcane permitting, planning and zoning process in Oklahoma City. Mayor David Holt, a former Republican state senator, said those land use decisions are among the most crucial of any municipal government, showing how communities find few resources in fighting the construction of new ICE detention facilities.

“For any entity to be able to open a detention center in our communities, potentially next to neighborhoods or schools, regardless of your views on immigration policy or enforcement, is very challenging, because that’s a very high-impact use, and that’s the kind of thing that we would expect to talk about,” he told Stateline, regarding communities finding few resources when fighting detention facility construction.

Communities across the country are facing similar prospects as ICE undertakes a massive expansion fueled in large part by the record $45 billion approved for increased immigration detention by Congress last summer, showing how communities find few resources in fighting ICE detention facilities.

During President Donald Trump’s second term, ICE is holding a record number of detainees — more than 70,000 as of January — across its own facilities as well as in contracted local jails and private prisons. ICE documents from last week show plans for acquiring and renovating 16 processing sites that hold up to 1,500 people each and eight detention centers that hold up to 10,000 each, for a total capacity of 92,600 beds. The agency also has plans for some 150 new leases and office expansions across the country, Wired reported.

But ICE’s plans to convert industrial buildings — often warehouses — into new detention facilities have recently faced fierce opposition over humanitarian and economic concerns. From Utah to Texas to Georgia, local governments have sought to block these massive facilities. But with limited legal authority, communities find few resources in fighting ICE and city and state officials have turned to the court of public opinion to deter private developers and the federal government.

Holt, who is the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a nonpartisan organization representing the more than 1,400 leaders of cities with populations of 30,000 or more, said cities have little legal recourse over the ICE facilities, demonstrating how communities find few resources in fighting them.

Read the full article about communities fighting immigration detention facilities by Kevin Hardy at Stateline.