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Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert and a San Antonio priest are urging the city to consider legal action against a planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center on the East Side. They are organizing a march Saturday to press that demand. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones says she is seeking answers from ICE before the City Council decides what to do next.
ICE bought a warehouse at 542 S.E. Loop 410 for $66.1 million in January. The agency has said it expects to hold between 1,000 and 1,500 people there each day during immigration proceedings, with an opening planned for next winter.
In a June letter to Jones, ICE’s acting director said the agency would review its designs with city officials and utilities and invite community concerns. He said ICE planned to renovate the building to house detainees safely and humanely.
However, Calvert told Texas Public Radio’s "The Source" that the city and county should examine whether ICE has complied with the National Environmental Policy Act. He also raised questions about water and sewer capacity and whether residents have had a chance to be heard.
“I think it’s very important that we at least slow this down and make sure that the processes happen,” Calvert said. “It doesn’t guarantee that we can absolutely stop it.”
Other jurisdictions have challenged warehouse conversions on environmental grounds. Lawsuits and administrative orders have delayed some projects. The federal government owns the East Side property, limiting the city’s ability to use local zoning rules to stop the facility.
Father Jimmy Drennan, pastor of St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, said immigration enforcement is already affecting families his parish serves. He said parents fear their children could be detained and that schools in the area are losing students.
“It has created a horrific sense of fear in the entire east and southeast side of San Antonio,” Drennan said.
“Our parents and families are worried, and in many cases, they’re terrified, that their children are going to be picked up on their way into their high schools and then end up in that detention center,” he said.
Drennan said the local community needs to show up and voice their collective opposition to ICE’s presence in San Antonio.
“We’re going to have is to create a sense of outrage amongst the citizens of San Antonio in all of our districts and throughout the entire county in South Texas,” he said.
Asked whether the city of San Antonio could do more to prevent the ICE facility opening, Drennan answered: “Absolutely.”
Drennan and Calvert want the march to bring residents together and press city and county attorneys to assess possible legal claims.
They said marchers will gather at Davis Middle School on East Houston Street at 8 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, and begin walking toward the ICE site at 9 a.m. Drennan described it as a peaceful, prayerful demonstration.
But Calvert said they are seeking to pressure local officials to seek any and all legal measures to stop the ICE facility from becoming operational.
“Part of what we’re trying to do on October 3rd is a march that really puts pressure on the district attorney, civil division, and the city attorney’s office to sue,” Calvert said.
Ortiz Jones told "The Source" she has asked ICE’s acting director for the status of any environmental review, how the agency intends to address city permitting, and how it will seek and consider public feedback. She requested a response by Sept. 30.
“We have put a deadline by the 30th of September to review what response we do or do not get and then determine what makes the most sense for our community after that,” the mayor said. She said the council would then discuss its options.
Jones said the federal government has not been communicating about with the city about ICE operations and its plans for the ICE detention facility.
“There just hasn’t been a lot of transparency, unfortunately, from DHS on this topic, despite our numerous requests for information,” Jones said.
The recent shooting of a DoorDash driver by an ICE agent in Austin has added urgency to the debate over the proposed San Antonio detention center.
Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan man, was wounded during an encounter with ICE agents.
Garcés Pérez was wounded with a gunshot in the back of the neck. He was taken to a hospital and then transferred to ICE custody. He said he was in pain, still had a bullet lodged in his back and was not receiving adequate medical care. His attorney later said he had been returned to a hospital for treatment after experiencing paralysis on his left side.
The Department of Homeland Security has said he is subject to a final removal order but has offered little public detail about why an agent opened fire on Garcés Pérez.
Drennan, a former San Antonio police officer, raised concerns about the shooting as he questioned how ICE agents are selected and trained. The case has become another focus for opponents of the East Side facility, who say they fear what expanded detention and enforcement could mean for local families.
“We have to remember in San Antonio that the very first people in that detention center will be people of this community. We’re going to see the people we sit next to in church, in school, in our workplaces, and have grown up with,” Drennan said.
Garcés Pérez is expected in a San Antonio federal courtroom Wednesday, September 30, for a habeas corpus hearing. A habeas petition asks a court to examine the legal basis for holding someone in custody; it is separate from an investigation into the shooting.
