Federal immigration officials are moving ahead with plans to turn an East Side warehouse into a detention center for as many as 1,500 people a day, despite months of opposition from San Antonio leaders and residents.
ICE paid $66.1 million in January for the nearly 640,000-square-foot building at 542 S.E. Loop 410. In August, it awarded GardaWorld Federal Services a $17.3 million contract to renovate the property and provide services for its operation. ICE now expects the center to open this winter, later than an earlier September 30 target.
Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert is urging opponents to join an Oct. 3 march. In a September 10 statement, he said local officials should examine whether ICE bypassed environmental review and adequately considered the effects on traffic, utilities and public safety. He criticized earlier legal advice that the city and county had no way to challenge the project.
Communities elsewhere have slowed or derailed similar conversions. Michigan’s Romulus warehouse was among the sites ICE moved to abandon after legal and community opposition. A federal judge temporarily halted work on a proposed Maryland facility over environmental-review concerns. Those outcomes do not establish that ICE broke the law in San Antonio, where no comparable court order has stopped the project.
The San Antonio City Council tightened zoning rules for detention centers, but those rules generally do not apply to federally owned property. ICE says it needs more space as arrests increase and has said it will discuss the facility’s design with local officials.
Calvert also questions GardaWorld’s involvement in Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz.” A federal watchdog found serious problems with conditions there. GardaWorld provided services at that facility, but the watchdog did not assign responsibility for the problems to the company. GardaWorld says the practices identified as noncompliant were not its work.
Guest:
Tommy Calvert is a Bexar County commission for Precinct 4.
Father Jimmy Drennan is the pastor of St. Margaret Mary Church.
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