San Antonio sues to block plans to convert warehouse into an ICE detention center
By Alex Nguyen, The Texas Tribune
October 13, 2026
The city of San Antonio has sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to block a proposed immigration detention facility, arguing the federal agency failed to review the plan’s environmental impact.
DHS paid $66.1 million for a 640,000-square-foot commercial warehouse in San Antonio earlier this year. In August, the agency awarded a $17.3 million contract to GardaWorld Federal Services to convert the building into a detention facility that could hold 1,500 immigrants a day.
In a Tuesday federal petition, city officials said the federal agency disregarded requirements to thoroughly consider the plan’s environmental consequences and consider reasonable alternatives in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Other communities have used the same strategy to fight ICE.
San Antonio’s filing said DHS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials failed to upgrade the facility’s sewer and water system to ensure its operation would not discharge harmful contaminants into surface waters. It also pointed to longstanding concerns regarding health and safety conditions within ICE detention centers, such as disease outbreaks reported in Texas facilities earlier this year. In addition, the city alleged that it has received “little-to-no information” from federal officials about their plans for the warehouse.
“The Detention Conversion Project threatens the environmental, economic, public health, and safety interests of the City of San Antonio and its people,” the petition said. “These alarming conditions could endanger public health and require a response by City health officials.”
DHS said the city was more interested in thwarting President Donald Trump’s immigration policy than caring about the environment. An unnamed spokesperson also said the agency is moving swiftly with state and county partners to use existing detention space.
“From day one, DHS has remained singularly focused on removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from the United States and is always evaluating the best methods to do so,” the unnamed spokesperson told The Texas Tribune. “These heinous criminals, once arrested, should be removed at lightning speed, not housed on American soil at the taxpayer’s expense.”
As of Aug. 6, just over 30% of the people arrested by ICE across the country had a prior conviction, according to federal data. In Texas, two-thirds of people arrested by ICE had no criminal convictions.
This is not the only warehouse that DHS has had eyes on in Texas.
In February, a company said it would not sell or lease a 1 million-square-foot facility in Hutchins to ICE, blocking a plan to convert it into a detention facility near Dallas that could hold 9,500 people. Meanwhile, Democratic U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar told the Tribune in August that DHS was planning to sell the three warehouses it had bought in El Paso County, which have capacity for more than 8,000 people.
The federal agency has also offloaded several other warehouses around the country that were initially bought to boost the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.