ICE buys a Salt Lake City warehouse with plans for a new detention center

A Salt Lake City warehouse is the latest in the nation to be purchased by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement as the Trump administration plans a $45 billion expansion of detention centers. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, and a Delaware company on Wednesday finalized the $145.4 million deal, county property records show. The hulking facility with a long line of loading docks and few windows is located in an industrial district about a 10-minute drive from the Salt Lake City airport. 

In a statement to Utah News Dispatch, a representative for ICE said the agency intends to use the site as a detention facility and said it will undergo “community impact studies and a rigorous due diligence process to make sure there is no hardship on local utilities or infrastructure prior to purchase.” 

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The agency didn’t provide specifics about its plans, including how many people they would house or how soon the facility could come online.

Mayors of Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, along with Democratic state lawmakers, condemned the sale, raising humanitarian and logistical concerns.

“Let me be clear. A detention center does not belong in our capital city — full stop,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said in a statement Friday. “The mass detention of people inside a warehouse is inhumane and is contradictory to the function, values and desires of Salt Lakers, and I will use every tool at the City’s disposal to stop it.”

She pointed out the city was settled by Latter-day Saint pioneers seeking refuge in 1847, saying it is “not the place” for a detention center. She said it also doesn’t have the capacity to add such a facility on its west side in addition to the new state prison and a proposed homeless campus. 

Mendenhall said the city is looking into legal options and evaluating its power and water infrastructure, adding that the use of a warehouse for detaining migrants “is also wholly outside the scope of our available resources and zoning allowances.”

Carlos Trujillo, an immigration attorney based in South Jordan, said the deal forecasts a bigger presence of ICE around the state, and the agency will likely bring in people from surrounding states without large detention centers. Trujillo said anyone with a criminal record who’s considered a danger to the community would be held in jails, while those detained in situations like a traffic stop or a work place raid would go to the new site.

“I still have hope that somehow, public outcry or something, it doesn’t come through,” Trujillo said. 

Some states and cities have successfully fended off the projects. The federal government backed off a similar project in New Hampshire in February after discussions with its Republican governor. In Oklahoma, owners of a warehouse property ended talks with federal officials after public outcry.  

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox didn’t return a request for comment on Friday. However, he previously expressed interest in hosting an ICE detention facility under the Biden administration, arguing that a new center would help ease a backlog in a Las Vegas facility.

“We would love to have a holding facility here and we have made several offers to make that easier so there isn’t this backlog when it comes to transportation,” he said during a 2024 news conference broadcast by PBS Utah.

ICE said it anticipates the center and its construction would generate almost 9,900 jobs and bring in more than $238 million in tax revenue, without saying how it arrived at those numbers.

The agency repeated its prior statements that nearly 70% of those it has arrested are unauthorized immigrants that have been charged or convicted of a crime. But as of Feb. 7, 73.6% of detainees have no criminal convictions, according to government data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

 “These economic benefits don’t even take into account that removing criminals from the streets makes communities safer for business owners and customers,” ICE said in the statement.

Utah’s Democratic state lawmakers, led by Sen. Luz Escamilla and Rep. Angela Romero, both of Salt Lake City, warned of potential impacts to residents on the city’s west side, saying “it is particularly alarming that this facility will sit in the heart of one of Utah’s most diverse communities.”

“Life as we know it on the West Side is about to change dramatically, and many families will now live under constant terror,” the lawmakers said in a statement. “This is a defining moment for our state, and we are confident that Utah will come together to stand up for what is right.”

The seller of the warehouse, RREEF CPIF 6020 W 300 S LLC, is a Delaware limited liability company with an address in Chicago, according to county property records. 

The land lies within the Utah Inland Port Authority, a state-governed shipping and trade hub. The authority’s officers learned of the purchase Thursday and were still working to determine the potential impacts, said spokesperson Kaitlin Felsted. 

Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, a Democrat, said she’s “deeply disturbed” by the sale of the warehouse of more than 830,000 square feet and signaled that local officials face an uphill battle in trying to stop the project. 

When rumors surfaced in January that a different site nearby could house an ICE detention center, Wilson noted many came together in protest. 

“This time the obstacles may be greater, but our commitment must be just as strong,” Wilson said. “We cannot allow aggressive and often unlawful federal enforcement tactics to take root in our community.”

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