HAGERSTOWN, Md. — Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown is urging U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pause plans to convert a vacant Hagerstown warehouse into an immigration detention facility.
In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which included the heads of Maryland's Department of the Environment, Department of Natural Resources, Department of Transportation, and Department of Health, Brown cited “ongoing and unresolved concerns” surrounding the project’s environmental impacts.
He also argued that the agency should prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement rather than a “limited” Environmental Assessment, and said ICE should consider selling the property.
“I am also concerned that ICE has failed to provide sufficient information to allow the public to meaningfully comment on its proposed activities and that the Scoping Notice itself indicates that ICE may allow its previous commitment of resources to convert the warehouse to bias the forthcoming environmental review,” Brown wrote in the letter.
The dispute is the latest development in a monthslong legal battle between the state of Maryland and ICE over proposed detention facilities in Howard and Washington counties.
In February, Brown filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop ICE from building the Washington County facility.
ICE was awarded a contract to begin construction on March 6 after purchasing the warehouse at Wright and Hopewell roads in Williamsport.
At the time, Brown argued that the federal government had failed to conduct an environmental review of the project’s potential impact on the Potomac River.
Less than a week after ICE received funding for the project, a federal judge temporarily barred the agency from moving forward with construction.
The order was extended a week later, giving the state of Maryland more time to make its case against the facility.
DHS later asked a judge to allow limited construction to proceed, saying it would not convert the warehouse into a detention center — at least for the time being.
Court filings from ICE attorneys stated, in part: “The agency will not be imminently pursuing any retrofitting work for detention purposes.”
A federal judge later granted Maryland’s motion for a preliminary injunction, continuing to block construction of the facility.
In the recent letter to DHS, Brown said ICE still has not provided the public with access to information about its plans, leaving the state without the details needed to analyze “several important aspects of the proposal.”
AG Brown's full letter to DHS can be read below:
