Washington County reveals meeting with feds about planned ICE facility near Hagerstown

Washington County officials sought on Wednesday to address concerns about a planned immigration processing and detention facility just outside Hagerstown, emphasizing that the federal government has pledged to pay for any needed infrastructure improvements.

The project has been temporarily stopped after Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown sued the Department of Homeland Security to block the transformation of a Washington County warehouse into an immigration detention facility, citing environmental and public health concerns.

On Wednesday, the Washington County Board of Commissioners released a lengthy statement two days after their meeting with leadership from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They described the meeting as a significant step toward learning more about the facility and said that it bolstered communication between Washington County and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which will run it.

The statement was not attributed to any particular spokesperson or official. It repeated language from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, that the new facility will be used for processing, and not as a detention center. The facility is expected to create as many as 1,125 jobs.

Federal officials, according to the statement, said the Williamsport project would be a booking facility where those arrested for immigration violations would be taken initially. The average length of stay for those detained, according to the statement, would be three to seven days. After that, detainees would be transferred to a longer-term detention facility out of state.

According to the statement, local officials were told that the center, which would have the ability to house 1,500 detainees, would typically hold about 500 on an average day. Federal officials told Washington County officials that it would be unlikely to reach its full capacity.

The statement released by the county commissioners also addressed concerns from activists and local residents regarding the local water and wastewater infrastructure, saying that the contractor, KVG LLC, would be responsible for all engineering and construction work related to the project, including those utility needs.

The federal government, according to the county’s statement, would pay for any required infrastructure improvements, and KVG would be responsible for any temporary solutions for meeting those needs until the improvements are made. No details were provided about the cost of such improvements.

Federal officials have not answered questions about a timeline for the renovation of the 825,000-square-foot warehouse and how long it would take to staff the facility. The contractors that DHS has enlisted are relatively untested, and the scope of the project could present logistical challenges.

DHS’s plans to convert warehouses into makeshift detention and processing centers has generated pushback from activists and local governments across the country. In Hagerstown, the proposal for nearby Williamsport has divided the community and drawn protesters to the meetings of the county commissioners.

On Wednesday, Washington County officials said in its statement that representatives from the Trump administration want to dispel negative feelings in the community and elsewhere about the humane treatment of detainees, pointing to DHS standards for housing, medical and other needs.

The statement said that the facility will have privately staffed, on-site medical care to reduce any burden on the local community’s health care needs

Washington County officials said there are no future meetings scheduled at this time with DHS.