U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has once again pushed back the opening date for a San Antonio warehouse the agency bought to convert into an immigrant detention center.
According to a letter Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones received from ICE officials in late June, the agency now plans to open the facility by mid-2027. The new timeline would put the lockup into operation almost a year after its original target date. The delay follows setbacks, legal challenges and a leadership shakeup at the Department of Homeland Security.
ICE purchased the San Antonio warehouse early this year to convert it into a 1,500-bed “processing facility” for adult immigrants awaiting deportation. But since then, the project has been met with both fierce community opposition and delays.
When the agency’s purchase of the warehouse was first reported in January, it offered no timeline for when it would become operational. However, subsequent reports stated that it would open by September of this year. Later, the timeline became “by the end of the year.”
In April, councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, whose District 2 includes the facility, mistakenly said that the project had been “paused indefinitely” due to a court-ordered pause on development of ICE projects in Maryland.
However, a Washington Post article from May said four of the original 12 facilities planned nationwide were still going forward, including the San Antonio site, which the paper said would open by “early 2027,” indicating further delays.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also undergone a change in leadership. President Donald Trump fired Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March and replaced her with Markwayne Mullin.
The new ICE letter, dated June 22, updating the East Side center’s opening date comes after Mayor Jones sent letters to both DHS’s old and new leadership requesting more transparency. In their latest official communication on the timeline, ICE officials now state that the target is “the second quarter of 2027.”
Councilman McKee-Rodriguez posted a video Thursday to Instagram discussing the update and included a screenshot of ICE official David J. Venturella’s letter to Jones.
“They’re scaling back plans that they were once determined to rush forward in secret,” McKee-Rodriguez said in the clip. “And it’s because of the sustained public pressure that’s being applied.”
ICE purchased the 640,000-square-foot industrial warehouse at 542 S.E. Loop 410 from Oakmont Industrial Group after it sat vacant for three years. The sprawling structure isn’t equipped to handle human occupancy, nor does it have the proper plumbing or zoning, meaning it would have to be retrofitted to be turned into an immigrant prison.
McKee-Rodriguez encouraged his followers to keep the pressure on their congressional representatives and ask them to oppose expansion of immigrant detention in San Antonio.
“And if they won’t stand with our community on this issue, they have not earned your support,” he said.
The councilman said this was not the kind of infrastructure and investment his predominantly Black and historically underserved East Side has been clamoring for.
“The East Side has spent generations fighting for investment, opportunity and dignity, and we cannot become the site of a massive detention facility,” he added. “If you’ve been wondering when to get involved, this is the moment.”
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