U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director Todd Lyons has stated his horrific goal of building a deportation system that treats people like packages; “Like (Amazon) Prime, but with human beings,” he said last year. To advance this dehumanizing vision, the Trump administration aims to acquire more than 20 warehouses to imprison people who are to be deported, often without due process and in violation of their legal rights, showing the urgent need to resist and shut down ICE detention centers in warehouses.

ICE’s plan is to use the converted warehouses to speed up the deportation process—or, as described in a draft solicitation reported on by the Washington Post, to “maximize efficiency, minimize costs.” Instead of relying on smaller facilities throughout the country, they will book immigrants into local processing sites, then transition them into these enormous new detention centers where they are likely to be far from their homes, families, and attorneys. The plan would add upward of 80,000 detention beds, with some of the warehouses holding nearly 10,000 people.

But coordinated efforts to prevent ICE from obtaining these warehouses show how opposition to President Trump’s immigration policy continues to grow. Though Trump seems to see himself as a king with limitless power, the federal government often requires the consent and participation of the public to function. Public and private entities are pushing back on the warehouse purchases, realizing that they don't have to facilitate the Trump administration’s cruel efforts to detain immigrants in warehouse settings. As public opinion turns against inhumane ICE enforcement—and nearly two thirds of people disapprove of the way that ICE is enforcing immigration laws—local successes offer lessons that can build momentum for coordinated resistance, with the ultimate goal of shrinking immigration detention.

Shutting Down ICE Detention: Public Pressure Campaigns on Companies That Own Warehouses Yield Results

Following public backlash and criticism, some companies have rejected or canceled sales or leases of warehouses to ICE for use as immigration detention sites. Reports that an Ashland, Virginia, industrial property owned by Vancouver-based megacorporation Jim Pattison Developments was to be used as an ICE processing facility sparked calls for a boycott of the company as well as suspended media buys. “Our decision is grounded in a commitment to human rights, dignity and justice,” Point Blank Creative, a media agency, wrote in a letter announcing that it would halt media buys from Pattison Group entities. “We stand firmly against the targeting and terrorizing of immigrants by the Trump Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and we strongly oppose Pattison Group’s decision to allow its commercial property in the U.S. to be used as ICE processing facilities.” In February, Jim Pattison Developments announced it had canceled the sale of the property to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Even as the detention boom has been so wildly profitable for some companies, economic pressure is clearly working on others, an example of success in shutting down ICE detention centers in warehouses.

Read the full article about shutting down ICE detention in warehouses by Erica Bryant at Vera Institute of Justice.