Maryland sues Trump administration to halt construction of ICE facility

By Jasper Ward

WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said on Monday that the state has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to halt construction of a new federal immigration detention center in the state.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has federal oversight of immigration, spent more than $100 million on a 54-acre warehouse in Maryland’s Washington County to convert into a detention center capable of holding 1,500 people at a time, Brown said. 

The Trump administration, according to Maryland’s attorney general and government, purchased the property without conducting an environmental review or receiving public input.

However, according to Washington County last month, the federal government did not need to seek local zoning approval for the project. As a result, it said, the county could not legally restrict the Trump administration’s ability to proceed with the detention center.

“Our people must be heard when the federal government makes decisions that affect their health, their safety, and their communities,” said Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat.

He added: “The State of Maryland is filing this lawsuit because DHS must be held to the same legal standard as every other federal agency.” 

DHS rejected Maryland’s claim that the lawsuit was based on environmental concerns and said that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was willing to work with state officials to expand detention capabilities. 

“These will not be warehouses — they will be very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards,” a department spokesperson said.

The department plans to spend more than $38 billion in 2026 on detention centers as the Republican Trump administration seeks to ramp up its already aggressive immigration agenda. This would increase Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s total bed capacity to 92,600 at its detention centers.

There are currently more than 200 federal immigration detention centers in the United States.

The move to increase detention centers in states across the U.S. has been met with some bipartisan criticism.

Amid the criticism, four Democratic members of Congress on Monday announced a plan to introduce a bill requiring DHS to seek written approval from state and local officials before constructing, acquiring or operating any ICE processing facility or detention center.     

(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell and Matthew Lewis)