City Council voted 8-2 at its Thursday meeting to instruct city staff to explore options to limit the opening of certain types of detention facilities here.
The vote came in response to public uproar over a plan by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to convert a 640,00-square-foot East Side warehouse into a migrant detention center. Even so, the motion is unlikely to stop ICE’s plans, since the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause means local zoning laws don’t apply to the feds.
Both of council’s conservatives, District 10’s Marc Whyte and District 9’s Misty Spears, voted against the measure. District 6 Councilman Ric Galvan was absent due to a personal matter, his office told the Current.
“Nothing that this resolution could result in would have any effect on that East Side detention center,” Whyte said during the meeting. “It’s a waste of time and money.”
The resolution instructs city staff to explore creating a new zoning category that would prohibit certain types of construction near housing, parks and schools. It also asks staff to establish a moratorium on privately owned and operated detention facilities. Some of the lockups ICE uses to detain migrants are run by private-prison companies.
While Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said the resolution is worthwhile step, she warned residents not to expect it to stop federal immigration officials in their tracks.
“I just want to manage people’s expectations of what we’re actually able to do here,” Jones said.
District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who led an effort to stop the former owner of the East Side warehouse from selling to ICE, also suggested much was out of the city’s hands. He told concerned residents their best course of action is to demand federal elected officials do more to rein in the Trump administration’s crackdown.
“Get on your Congress members,” McKee-Rodriguez said. “Push them, because they are allowing this behavior.”
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