It’s been three weeks since pen was put to paper for the Department of Homeland Security to buy a more than 400,000 square foot warehouse in Surprise near Sweetwater Avenue and Dysart Road for $70 million.
But there’s still been no official word from DHS on what the plan for the Surprise facility will officially be.
“I’ve talked to the mayor in detail about this. There was no consultation with them ahead of time,” said Sen. Mark Kelly in an interview earlier this week.
Kelly and Sen. Ruben Gallego, along with the city of Surprise and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, sent letters to DHS this week demanding answers on the plans for the Surprise facility.
Over the last few weeks, elected officials in Arizona from both parties have sent similar letters to DHS.
“They think at this point to either process or house, incarcerate, up to 1,500 people. Facility isn’t designed for that,” said Kelly.
While DHS has not publicly confirmed what they intend to do with the warehouse, multiple watchdog groups say it is expected to be turned into a regional immigrant processing facility.
Following a Senate Committee Hearing when acting ICE director Todd Lyons was asked about a similar warehouse purchase in the northeast, documents detailing DHS plans when it comes to a Detention Reengineering Initiative.
According to the document, the cost for the new model is $38.3 billion dollars and will increase bed capacity to 92,600 beds for ICE.
There are plans to acquire and remodel eight large-scale detention centers and 16 processing sites.
The regional processing centers, which is what the Surprise facility is believed to be planned to become, would house between 1,000 to 1,500 detainees on average for typically 3-7 days. Those locations will serve as staging areas for immigration transfers and removals.
DHS says the Large-scale detention facilities could securely and humanly house between 7,000 to 10,000 detainees for up to two months at a time. Those will serve as the primary location for international removals.
“This community doesn’t want this there,” said Kelly referencing the Surprise warehouse.
DHS says this new model is expected to be ICE’s long-term detention solution and that the department conducted thorough due diligence prior to buying each site. The goal, according to DHS, is to have all the facilities operational by the end of November.
