The East Side warehouse previously owned by Oakmont industrial Group is among the largest such structures in San Antonio. Credit: Google Maps / Screenshot

Some City Council members want to consider whether San Antonio can slap penalties on vendors and contractors who provide services to a planned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center on the East Side, a new memo shows.

Council will discuss the document — signed by District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, District 4’s Edward Mungia, District 5’s Teri Castillo and District 6’s Ric Galvan — at its Thursday morning session.

The lengthy memo, added to the agenda by City Manager Erik Walsh, takes aim at potential ICE vendors and contractors by urging staff to look into whether the city can exclude the businesses from future contracts. Further, the filing seeks an evaluation of whether vendors’ detention-center contracts could leave the city open to future lawsuits and whether city procurement policies can be upgraded to consider firms’ civil rights records.

Although the memo also proposes a moratorium on the construction of non-municipal detention facilities, it’s unclear whether the city has that authority to do so. The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause essentially allows the federal government total control over its own land regardless of local laws.

Thursday’s discussion will come roughly a week after Atlanta-based Oakmont Industrial Group sold a 640,000-square-foot East Side warehouse to ICE for $66 million. The federal agency reportedly plans to use the facility — one of the city’s largest such structures — as a processing center for detained migrants.

The feds’ move comes amid rising public anger over President Donald Trump’s draconian anti-immigrant program and the part ICE plays in it.

Six in 10 Americans disapprove of the job ICE is doing, while only 3 in 10 support its actions, according to a new PBS News/NPR/Marist Poll. A also majority maintain ICE is making U.S. residents less safe, and a growing number said the agency’s actions have gone too far.

San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones has voiced concern about the facility, telling reporters and concerned citizens last week that she’s working with the City Attorney’s office to explore possible legal action to stop it from opening.

However, conservative Councilman Marc Whyte last week told WOAI-AM radio he’s concerned about the blowback if the city tries to battle the Trump administration in court.

“To the extent that we want to fight this or block it or tie it up in court or whatever it may be, the federal government will see that — and we do risk losing some very, very important funding that people here rely on,” Whyte said.

Whyte’s comments came hours before a tense public comment session at City Hall last Wednesday. Dozens of concerned citizens spoke out against the planned ICE detention facility.

“This is not a law enforcement agency accountable to the public. It is a weapon,” San Antonio resident Giovanna Romero said during the session. “These aren’t isolated incidents. They reveal the character of the regime, an identity of untrained, militarized cronies operating with lessons to lie, to disappear and to kill.”

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...