https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/the-fight-against-warehouse-detention-has-come-to-congress/

2 hours ago

The Fight Against Warehouse Detention Has Come to Congress

With local victories in hand and bipartisan outrage growing, advocates want federal lawmakers to permanently close the door on converting warehouses into detention camps.

Rashida Tlaib speaks at a press conference

At a press conference on April 23, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced the "Ban Warehouse Detention Act." Bill Clark/ZUMA Press Wire

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Laura Spivak, an organizer with Washington County Indivisible, has spent the past few months trying everything to stop the construction of an ICE detention warehouse only five miles from her home.

“We’ve protested, we’ve written and called, we’ve fought legal battles,” she said at a press conference Thursday in support of the Ban Warehouse Detention Act, a bill Rep.Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) is introducing to prohibit the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from using taxpayer funds to purchase, convert, or operate commercial warehouses as immigration detention centers. Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) introduced a similar bill in the Senate two weeks ago.

Spivak has found some success fighting the warehouse detention center in her backyard. Last week, a judge agreed to temporarily block the construction of a Williamsport, Maryland facility, where ICE planned to jail up to 1,500 people. But without more help, Spivak fears that this will only be a temporary victory.

The Ban Warehouse Detention Act, Spivak said, “prevents local politicians from colluding with DHS to convert warehouses into detention camps, and prevents them from shutting out the voices of residents like us.”

As of February, the Department of Homeland Security planned to spend over $38 billion dollars purchasing 24 warehouses across the country, in order to detain up to 92,000 people. So far, they have purchased eleven.

Spivak thinks that money could be better-spent doing pretty much anything else. Williamsport’s local library needs renovation, its school buildings need modernization, and investing in tourism could bring prosperity to the town’s historic district. “A prison camp will not help Williamsport develop economically,” she said. “It will drive down property values and bring shame to a town that deserves a helping hand, not a federal slap in the face.”

In early April, the Department of Homeland Security said they would pause the purchase of any new warehouses while conducting an internal review of facilities purchased under recently-fired Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. But a pause, Tlaib said Thursday, is not enough.

“We need to save lives right now,” Tlaib said. She has been in contact with immigrants held in warehouse detention in Michigan, she said: some of them have been held for months after signing letters stating their willingness to leave the country; others are becoming sick due to the conditions in the facilities.

“A young lady that was in the facility for over a year at 33 years old, and never had a seizure before, had a seizure because of malnutrition and sleep deprivation,” Tlaib said. “I mean, this is a form of torture.” Immigrants at one GEO-group-owned facility in North Lake, Michigan, have launched a hunger strike demanding access to adequate food, medical care, and legal representation.

The local-level pushback against ICE, meanwhile, continues: there are rapid-response networks in every major city, where residents alert each other to the presence of ICE officers and gather resources for immigrants in their communities. Online maps show current and future detention warehouse purchases planned in communities across the country. And wherever ICE plans to build a facility, protests tend to follow.

Under Tlaib’s draft bill, no agency may “Establish, operate, expand, convert, or renovate any warehouse, industrial facility, tent, soft-sided structure, modular unit, or similar building or structure for the purposes of housing, processing, or detaining individuals under civil immigration authority.”

“Human beings do not belong in warehouses,” said Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Il.). “From Arizona to New Hampshire, even Republican local elected officials oppose these warehouses. Not one penny of our tax dollars should be going towards these massive detention centers.”