Senator warns Byhalia mayor about ‘ICE warehouse’ deal scuttled by Kristi Noem, Wicker

By Michael Goldberg | Originally published by Mississippi Today

The mayor of Byhalia was among the recipients of a letter sent last week by U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy warning of costs, litigation and humanitarian concerns over proposals to turn warehouses into immigrant detention centers.

Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, serves as ranking member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. He sent letters to 21 local governments across the U.S., including the office of Byhalia Mayor Donald Hollingsworth, an independent. Murphy said the local governments are “actively” considering whether to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to buy warehouses in their communities for use as detention facilities.

But Murphy’s April 21 letter came over two months after former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had already agreed to abandon efforts to acquire a warehouse in the northern Mississippi town. Sen. Roger Wicker, who opposed the proposed Byhalia facility, on Feb. 6 announced that he had relayed local opposition and economic development concerns to Noem and that she had agreed “to look elsewhere.”

About a month later, Trump fired Noem and replaced her with Markwayne Mullin, a former U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. Murphy’s office told Mississippi Today it did not have confidence DHS would stick to its promises regarding ICE facilities, which have been central to President Donald Trump’s promise to carry out “the largest deportation operation” in American history.

Wicker had said he supported immigration enforcement but worried that putting a detention facility in Byhalia could overwhelm the small town’s infrastructure. The warehouse would reportedly have held up to 8,500 people — more than four times the population of Byhalia.

The warehouse was one of nearly two dozen that showed up on a list of possible detention sites in a document that spread online. Under the Trump administration, ICE has been allocated $85 billion — an unprecedented spending increase — making it the highest funded law enforcement agency in the country. It has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars as part of a $45-billion plan to expand detention centers.

In his letter to Byhalia and other localities, Murphy said that if Democrats retake control of Congress with the 2026 midterm elections, they would immediately aim to defund the warehouses, leaving local governments to foot the bill.

“Already this year, there have been at least 11 deaths in ICE custody. Last year, there were 31 reported deaths in ICE custody,” Murphy said. “The potential for a serious humanitarian catastrophe is very real and, as a result, these warehouse detention facilities will almost certainly be closed by a Democratic president or Congress.”

Murphy also warned the facilities would strain local services and that municipalities could face costly litigation related to these warehouses, ensnaring local officials “in years of depositions, sunshine law requests and disputes, and questions about liability in this untested concept.”

The other city governments that received Murphy’s letter are located across the country, but are mostly clustered in Republican-led states.

Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a nonprofit that focuses on criminal justice and immigration policy reform, said in a statement that there is bipartisan opposition to ICE warehouses.

“The administration’s efforts to use warehouses and industrial spaces as large-scale detention centers are deeply unpopular,” Schulte said. “That is evident from the pushback in red, blue, and purple jurisdictions across the country – from Mississippi and Tennessee, to Utah and Georgia, from rural to suburban areas, from big cities to small towns.”

Republican state governments such as Mississippi’s have recently approved policies aimed at increasing local cooperation with ICE. They argue it is a necessary step to rein in illegal immigration and increase public safety.

This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Source: Original Article