Prince George’s County has approved a Use and Occupancy Permit allowing the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to expand its existing operation inside Metro 1 at 6505 Belcrest Road in Hyattsville.

Neither the county nor DHS has publicly explained what ICE plans to do in the newly approved space. The most urgent questions remain unanswered: Will immigrants be detained, interviewed, or processed there? Will enforcement officers work from the building? Could the office be used to support arrests connected to the nearby immigration court?

Those questions would be serious at any location and are especially urgent at Metro 1. That’s because a person can walk into the building to apply for SNAP, pick up food from a county pantry, take a free English class or attend college. A few floors away, ICE operates an office that helps the federal government pursue deportation cases. Now that operation is expanding.

What ICE is adding at Metro 1

ICE’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, known as OPLA, already operates from Suite 450 at 6505 Belcrest Road. OPLA is ICE’s legal arm. Its attorneys represent DHS in immigration court and help the federal government pursue deportation cases.

The newly approved permit concerns Suite 310, so this is an expansion of ICE’s presence in the building, not simply a renewal of its existing office.

WJLA reported in February that ICE was believed to be leasing as much as 20,000 square feet at Metro 1. The Baltimore Banner later reported that the project involved Suite 310 and had been delayed after failing multiple inspections, including one on March 3.

The City of Hyattsville has now announced that Prince George’s County has now approved the permit. What the announcement did not say is who will occupy Suite 310 or what they will do there.

ICE’s deportation operation relies on attorneys, administrative employees, case processing, interviews and coordination with enforcement officers. Even if Suite 310 contains no jail cells, work performed there could still contribute directly to arrests, detention and deportation.

But the possibility that immigrants could be brought into Metro 1 must also be taken seriously. Members of Maryland’s congressional delegation asked DHS and ICE about that possibility in February. They asked whether the location would contain holding cells, whether immigrants would be brought there, whether enforcement officers would be stationed inside and how residents using other services in the building would be protected. And DHS does not appear to have publicly answered those questions.

Families visit Metro 1 for food, education and public assistance

Metro 1 is where many Prince George’s County residents go when they need help paying for groceries or covering other basic needs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), medical assistance, cash assistance, and a permanent food pantry in the building. This is also where Prince George’s Community College holds classes, job-training programs there, adult education, and offers free English classes for refugees and people who have been granted asylum.

People should not have to walk past an ICE operation to obtain food, learn English, attend college, or ask their local government for help. ICE’s presence can cause harm even if no one is arrested inside the building. A family afraid of being watched, questioned or followed may decide not to apply for food assistance. A refugee may stop attending English classes. Someone who needs help may stay home because entering the building no longer feels safe.

Residents warned Hyattsville officials months ago

Residents were raising concerns about Metro 1 well before the permit was approved. During a City Council meeting in May, residents from Wards 2 and 3 warned the council about the reported ICE expansion and urged city leaders to act.

A member of Hyattsville Resistance criticized the lack of clear communication and asked the city to take a stronger public position. Other residents called on city officials to oppose the expansion, keep people informed and protect those who depend on the services inside Metro 1.

Now the permit has been approved, but the public still does not know what Prince George’s County authorized. Residents should not have to piece together a major ICE expansion from permit records, news reports and announcements issued after the decision has already been made.

The timing of the permit is impossible to ignore

The timing raises even more questions. The Prince George’s County Council enacted CB-031-2026 on June 22 and County Executive Aisha Braveboy signed it into law on July 21.

The law prohibits Prince George’s County from issuing a building permit or certificate of occupancy for a detention center. It defines a detention center to include buildings where people are incarcerated or involuntarily confined for judicial or administrative proceedings, including immigration detention facilities. But the law does not take effect until 45 days after it became law, which is September 4.

On July 29, just eight days after Braveboy signed the legislation, the City of Hyattsville announced that the county had approved ICE’s permit for Suite 310.

That does not prove the county rushed the permit through to beat the new law. The city’s announcement does not even disclose when the permit was approved. But with DHS refusing to say whether immigrants will be detained or involuntarily confined inside Metro 1, the timing cannot simply be brushed aside.

Prince George’s County should immediately release the permit’s approval date, the use listed on the application and any records showing whether officials considered CB-031-2026 while reviewing it. If county officials determined that Suite 310 will only be used as an office and would not qualify as a detention center under the new law, they should release the records supporting that determination.

If ICE does plan to detain people there, residents deserve to know whether the permit would have been prohibited had it been issued after September 4. They also deserve to know whether ICE obtained approval during the brief period between the bill becoming law and its restrictions taking effect.

Washington County residents have seen this before

For people fighting the proposed ICE detention center in Washington County, Maryland, the secrecy surrounding Metro 1 is painfully familiar.

DHS purchased an 825,000-square-foot industrial warehouse in Washington County and moved forward with plans to detain as many as 1,500 people there before residents or state agencies had a real chance to examine the project. Maryland later sued DHS, accusing the agency of bypassing required environmental review and public participation. Washington County commissioners endorsed the facility despite unanswered questions and warnings from Maryland’s congressional delegation about the secrecy surrounding it.

Prince George’s County residents are now being forced into a similar position. ICE has been allowed to expand while basic information remains hidden, leaving the public to uncover the details through news reports, public-records requests and sustained pressure.

This is becoming a pattern: DHS moves first, local officials provide little information and residents are expected to investigate what their government has already approved.

The Hyattsville office is part of ICE’s nationwide expansion

ICE is pursuing new space across the country. Federal records reviewed by WIRED showed activity at more than 150 locations. General Services Administration employees were reportedly assigned to an “ICE surge” team helping find space for OPLA attorneys, Enforcement and Removal Operations personnel and other ICE employees.

A federal solicitation issued in October 2025 sought approximately 6,000 to 8,001 rentable square feet within five miles of Hyattsville for unspecified “law enforcement operations.” Though the solicitation does not name ICE or identify 6505 Belcrest Road specifically, it does show that the federal government was seeking additional law-enforcement space in the immediate area while ICE pursued more space inside the building.

Prince George’s County and DHS need to release the records

A Use and Occupancy Permit generally determines whether a proposed use complies with applicable zoning, building and safety requirements. Prince George’s County may not have had the legal authority to reject an otherwise valid permit simply because ICE was the tenant. But the county has no excuse for refusing to show residents what it approved.

Prince George’s County should release the complete permit file for Suite 310, including the application, stated use, approval date, square footage, anticipated occupancy, floor plans, inspection reports, correction notices, correspondence, and final approvals. And DHS and the General Services Administration should release the lease or occupancy agreement, cost, duration, operational requirements and records identifying which ICE components will work at Metro 1.

Residents need direct answers:

• Will immigrants be detained, questioned, interviewed or processed inside Metro 1?

• Will ICE enforcement officers work there?

• Will the office support arrests connected to the nearby immigration court?

• What protections will prevent ICE from watching or following people who visit the building for food, education or public assistance?

• When was the permit approved?

• Did county officials consider CB-031-2026 before issuing it?

• Would the permit have been prohibited if it had been issued after September 4?

• What will the county, city and agencies inside Metro 1 do if ICE’s presence prevents residents from safely accessing their services?

These answers should have been provided before the permit was approved. They should not require months of public-records requests and community pressure.

Join Friday’s protest at Metro 1

Hyattsville Resistance and Greenbelt Resistance Network are calling on the community to protest outside Metro 1:

Friday, July 31 at 5:00 PM
Metro 1
6505 Belcrest Road, Hyattsville, Maryland

No one should have to risk contact with ICE to get food, take an English class, attend college or ask their local government for help. Residents warned Hyattsville officials about ICE’s expansion months ago, but the county approved the permit without providing the public with the answers it deserves.

Join Hagerstown Rapid Response, Washington County Indivisible, and the Maryland Coalition to Stop the Camps as we stand with our allies in Prince George’s County.

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During Tuesday’s Washington County Commissioners meeting, residents will have three separate opportunities to speak about proposed changes involving water and sewer infrastructure, permitted land uses, and commercial zoning. On paper, the three hearings concern different properties and different parts of the county. However, they raise a much larger question: What kind of industrial and commercial development are county officials preparing Washington County to accommodate?

Residents have every reason to examine these proposals closely, especially after how much planning for the proposed ICE detention warehouse occurred outside public view.

In April, we uncovered that in December, 2025, Washington County Commissioners signed a nondisclosure agreement involving a secret land deal. One month later, it was announced that the federal government then purchased an 825,000-square-foot warehouse in Williamsport and began preparing it to hold as many as 1,500 people, even though major questions about wastewater capacity, emergency services, traffic, environmental impacts, and other infrastructure remain unanswered.

We are also deeply skeptical that the Department of Homeland Security intends to limit the facility to 1,500 people over the long term. Before abandoning plans for seven other warehouse detention centers last month, the agency planned to confine far more people inside buildings of comparable size. In Salt Lake City, for example, DHS purchased an approximately 833,000-square-foot warehouse, nearly the same size as the Williamsport building, with plans to detain between 7,500 and 10,000 immigrants there. Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County confirmed those projected numbers when they sued to stop the facility. Given DHS’s record of secrecy, residents have no reason to assume that the publicly stated capacity for Williamsport represents the agency’s ultimate plan.

Viewed in this broader context, county zoning and infrastructure decisions warrant far greater scrutiny. They determine what can be built, where it can be built, and how easily a proposal can move forward once the public finally learns about it.

The irony is impossible to miss. The commissioners are now holding three public hearings and asking residents to participate in decisions involving zoning, infrastructure, and future development. Yet they have repeatedly refused to allow residents to comment on the proposed ICE detention center during their meetings, even as the project raises many of the same questions about water, sewer capacity, emergency services, traffic, environmental effects, and land use.

On February 10, the commissioners unanimously adopted a resolution declaring their full support for DHS and ICE while the detention warehouse was at the center of intense local controversy. They were willing to take an official position supporting the agencies behind the project, but they have refused to provide the public with any forum to challenge the facility itself. Public participation cannot be treated as legitimate when it is offered for some major development decisions but withheld when residents oppose a project the commissioners have already chosen to support.

The Commissioners Have Already Given Residents Reasons to Be Suspicious

The lack of transparency surrounding these hearings is part of a broader pattern. On May 21, the commissioners held a special meeting and approved a consulting contract with GDMS LLC, a company operated by former County Administrator and former Water Quality Director Greg Murray, to study the county’s water and sewer capacity, infrastructure, and future development needs.

Strangely, the contract was not competitively bid. Commissioners Neil Parrott and Randal Leatherman opposed it after raising concerns about the selection process and the appearance of awarding such a consequential contract without seeking competing proposals. Nevertheless, Commissioner President John Barr cast the decisive vote in the 3–2 approval and was designated to sign the contract on the county’s behalf. The county’s official minutes document the vote and Barr’s role as signatory.

The no-bid award also involves a personal and professional relationship that should have been disclosed and discussed publicly. Greg Murray’s wife, Debra Murray, became chief financial officer of Ellsworth Electric, the company founded by John Barr, in 2018. Barr nevertheless cast the decisive vote awarding the consulting contract to Greg Murray’s company and was designated to sign it on the county’s behalf. That relationship does not appear in the county’s agenda report. At a minimum, Barr should publicly disclose the relationship, explain whether he sought an ethics opinion before participating, and release any such opinion. Awarding a no-bid public contract to the company of a person whose spouse held a senior financial position with Barr’s family business creates exactly the appearance of favoritism that transparent procurement and ethics procedures are supposed to prevent.

The materials presented to the public provided remarkably little accountability for such a broad assignment. The agenda report listed the fiscal impact, alternatives, and concurrences as “N/A.” The contract’s examples include reviewing water and sewer capacity, regulatory requirements, growth projections, neighboring utility systems, economic development objectives, service consolidation, joint agreements, and regional infrastructure projects. It also allows GDMS to perform unidentified additional tasks, including work outside utility evaluations, if directed. The initial scope of work did not even have to be developed until after the contract became effective. Those terms appear in the county’s revised meeting packet.

At the same special meeting, the commissioners voted 4–1 to amend an agreement with JG Business Link International Inc. under which the county would undertake improvements to the private sewer system serving approximately 62.9 acres at the former Fort Ritchie property. Now, two months later, the commissioners are holding a public hearing on an amendment that would significantly revise the zoning rules governing the broader Special Economic Development district at Fort Ritchie. Meanwhile, another hearing concerns extending water and sewer service to nearly 1.85 million square feet of proposed warehouse space near the Pennsylvania line.

Hiring a former senior county official through a process that did not include a broader search for consultants raises legitimate questions about favoritism and public accountability. Those concerns are heightened by the county’s agenda report, which listed the contract’s fiscal impact, alternatives, and concurrences only as “N/A,” even though the attached contract established an hourly payment arrangement and permitted additional assignments beyond the specifically identified utility work. When Barr cast the deciding vote despite objections to the selection process, he added another layer of suspicion to decisions involving valuable development rights and major public infrastructure. Residents are justified in asking who is shaping these decisions, which developers or properties could benefit, and how much may already have been decided before the public is invited to comment

A Temporary Moratorium Is Not a Permanent Safeguard

The commissioners recently voted 4–1 to impose a 12-month moratorium on the acceptance, processing, review, and approval of new data-center applications. Although the published meeting packet formally proposed a six-month pause, County Administrator Michelle Gordon said during the hearing that staff’s initial assessment called for 12 to 18 months and that staff recommended 18 months to examine potential effects on residents, the local economy, water and utility resources, infrastructure, and other regulatory concerns. County officials have also explicitly stated that the moratorium is not intended to prohibit data center development permanently. It merely delays the acceptance and review of applications while the county considers new regulations. The county’s moratorium materials also acknowledge that its current zoning ordinance does not specifically address data centers.

The moratorium may offer temporary protection, but it should not be mistaken for a final policy or binding long-term commitment. The same commissioners who enacted it retain the power to amend or repeal it through later official action. They could also adopt weak regulations at the end of the study period and begin accepting applications once the moratorium expires. Without a transparent study, enforceable standards, meaningful public participation, and a clear explanation of which zoning categories could accommodate data centers, the pause risks becoming little more than a dog-and-pony show designed to reassure residents while county officials prepare to permit these projects later.

This distinction is especially important when considering RZ-26-002, one of the projects open for public comment on Tuesday. It is not the county’s promised new data center ordinance, but a narrower amendment to the existing zoning rules governing the former Fort Ritchie property. The amendment would remove “Data Processing Facilities” as an expressly permitted use, but it neither defines nor expressly prohibits “data centers.” Removing that category may eliminate one potential route for approving a data center at Fort Ritchie, but it does not permanently settle whether one could be allowed there.

The county plans to develop separate data center regulations during the temporary moratorium. As part of that process, the commissioners could later decide whether data centers will be permitted at Fort Ritchie or elsewhere in Washington County and under what conditions. Residents should therefore demand clear definitions, binding protections, and meaningful opportunities for public participation before the moratorium expires or any permanent regulations are adopted.

1.) Water and Sewer Plan Amendment WS-25-004

The first hearing, scheduled for 9:30 a.m., concerns approximately 172 acres at 17939 Mason Dixon Road near the Maryland-Pennsylvania line. The company, 2003 Mason Dixon LLC, wants the county to change the property’s water and sewer classification from “planned service” to “programmed service” and formally recognize the Antrim Township Municipal Authority in Pennsylvania as a provider of water and wastewater service to eligible properties in Maryland.

The applicant is planning two warehouse or distribution buildings measuring approximately 1,237,600 and 611,520 square feet, for a combined total of nearly 1.85 million square feet. A site plan for the development, SP-23-004, is already under review by regulatory agencies. The Planning Commission has recommended approval of the amendment. The county’s hearing packet confirms the proposed warehouse sizes and requested utility changes.

The scale of the project alone would be more than twice the size of the 825,000-square-foot warehouse the Department of Homeland Security purchased in Williamsport. A development of that magnitude could generate substantial traffic, stormwater runoff, utility demand, construction disturbance, emergency-service needs, and effects on nearby groundwater and private wells. Its size makes comprehensive environmental, infrastructure, and public-safety studies essential before officials approve the Water and Sewer Plan amendment needed to serve it.

The hearing gives residents an opportunity to ask what these buildings are expected to contain, how much water and electricity they could eventually require, how much wastewater they could generate, and whether the proposed use could change after the infrastructure amendment is approved. Residents should also ask what safeguards would prevent the buildings from being converted into other intensive uses without another meaningful opportunity for public input.

The county’s own records state that the property is located within a wellhead protection area designated by the Maryland Department of the Environment and that individual wells and septic systems would be inadvisable because of the potential for groundwater contamination. County staff have argued that connecting the development to public utilities in Pennsylvania would be preferable to relying on private wells and septic systems and would preserve capacity in Washington County.

Connecting the proposed warehouses to public water and sewer service may be preferable to drilling new wells and installing septic systems on the property, but it does not resolve the potential risk to residents already relying on private wells nearby. Construction and operation of nearly 1.85 million square feet of warehouse space could alter stormwater drainage, increase impervious surfaces, disturb soil, and introduce new sources of contamination within a designated wellhead protection area. Before approving the amendment, officials should identify nearby private wells, establish baseline water-quality data, evaluate the development’s potential effects on groundwater, and explain who would be responsible if neighboring wells are contaminated or otherwise affected.

This hearing also appears to repeat the same basic failure that undermined the Department of Homeland Security’s public comment process for the proposed ICE detention center. DHS asked the public to evaluate its environmental conclusions without releasing the studies and infrastructure assessments underlying them. Now, the Washington County Commissioners are asking residents to comment on a water and sewer amendment without providing other information necessary to understand its potential effects. The county’s own staff report states that the Antrim Township service-area boundaries were not provided and does not identify the number of people currently living within the affected area. The application materials also do not appear to identify how many nearby households rely on private wells and septic systems that could be affected by development within this designated wellhead protection area.

How can the commissioners determine the effects on existing well users when they do not know the boundaries of the proposed service area, the number of people already living within it, or the number of nearby households relying on private wells and septic systems? A public hearing cannot provide meaningful public participation when the public has not been given the information necessary to evaluate what is being proposed.

Because this proposal depends on the Antrim Township Municipal Authority supplying water and wastewater service from Pennsylvania, residents there also deserve to know how much system capacity would be committed to nearly 1.85 million square feet of new warehouse development in Maryland. County documents say the authority has confirmed that capacity is available, but residents should be shown the underlying calculations and told whether the arrangement could affect future capacity, utility rates, infrastructure costs, drought planning, or service reliability for existing Pennsylvania customers. They should also know who will pay for construction, maintenance, treatment upgrades, and emergency repairs associated with extending service across the state line.

The ICE detention controversy has demonstrated why these questions must be asked before a warehouse is built or converted, not after a government agency has purchased it and begun construction.

2.) Zoning Text Amendment RZ-26-002

The second hearing, scheduled for 9:45 a.m., concerns the Special Economic Development district covering the former Fort Ritchie property in Cascade. Cascade Properties LLC is asking the county to amend the zoning rules for the entire district rather than approve one particular building.

The application would revise the uses and development standards governing the former Fort Ritchie property. It is important to read the application’s track-changes formatting carefully. Uses shown in red and underlined would be added, while uses shown in red with a strikethrough would be removed. “Data Processing Facilities” is crossed out, meaning the applicant is proposing to remove that use from the district. “Warehouses” appears in black and would remain an existing permitted use rather than being newly authorized. The full application and proposed changes are available in the county’s hearing packet.

Crossing out “Data Processing Facilities” does not settle whether data centers could be allowed at Fort Ritchie. The county has already acknowledged that its current zoning ordinance does not specifically address data centers, which raises the possibility that officials view “data processing facilities” and “data centers” as legally distinct uses. If that is the county’s position, removing the older term would not necessarily prohibit a modern data center. It could simply leave data centers unaddressed until the commissioners adopt separate regulations after the temporary moratorium.

Commissioners should explain whether a data center could still be approved under another permitted category, through the provision allowing uses deemed “functionally similar,” or through future countywide zoning changes. Until they answer those questions clearly, residents should not assume that crossing out “Data Processing Facilities” protects Fort Ritchie from future data center development.

The importance of this hearing is broader than data centers. The amendment would change which commercial, industrial, residential, and institutional uses can operate at Fort Ritchie and, in some cases, whether those uses require a special exception or can proceed as principally permitted uses. Moving a use from the special-exception process into the list of principally permitted uses can reduce later opportunities for neighbors to object to a specific project. Residents should examine each proposed addition, deletion, and procedural change and ask how it could affect future public oversight.

Warehouses would continue to be permitted at Fort Ritchie, while “Military Communication, Training or Operations Support Facilities” would remain listed as a special-exception use. Commissioners should explain whether any existing or proposed category could encompass immigration detention, federal contracting, or another government institutional use, and what additional public review would be required before such a project could move forward.

This is precisely the moment to clarify those definitions and procedures. Once broad zoning language has been adopted, residents may have far less leverage when a specific proposal arrives.

3.) Zoning Map Amendment RZ-26-003

The third hearing, scheduled for 10 a.m., concerns an application from Michael Godinez and Dominion Realty LLC to rezone two specific parcels from Residential Multifamily to Highway Interchange.

Unlike the Mason Dixon Road application, this request does not approve a specific development. Unlike the Fort Ritchie amendment, it does not change the rules across an entire zoning district. Instead, it would change the zoning designation of two particular parcels, opening them to a broader range of commercial and highway-oriented uses in the future.

Godinez and Dominion Realty argue that the surrounding area has changed and become more commercial, making the current residential zoning inappropriate. If the commissioners agree, a future developer would have more options for using the land, although an actual project could still require site-plan review, permits, and other approvals.

The information gap here is not limited to the water and sewer amendment. In RZ-26-003, residents are being asked to comment on converting two residential properties on Maugans Avenue to Highway Interchange zoning without being told what the contract purchaser intends to build or being given a concept plan showing the size, access, parking, lighting, operating hours, or proximity of any future commercial use to neighboring homes. The hearing packet does not even provide residents with a clear comparison of the uses allowed under the current Residential Multifamily zoning and the much broader Highway Interchange designation.

Godinez and Dominion Realty rely on increased traffic, access to public utilities, future road improvements, and separation from nearby homes to justify the rezoning. Yet the packet contains no traffic-impact study, utility-capacity confirmations, environmental analysis, or stormwater assessment. This is especially concerning because the applicant identifies a perennial stream and a county-owned stormwater facility immediately behind the properties, then claims the rezoning would have “no potential for adverse impacts in the future” without providing a study supporting that conclusion.

Once again, the process looks eerily similar to the public comment period DHS conducted for the proposed ICE detention facility in Washington County. DHS asked residents to evaluate claims about environmental and infrastructure impacts without releasing the studies underlying those claims. Now, the county commissioners are asking residents to evaluate whether this rezoning is compatible with neighboring properties and public infrastructure without disclosing the intended development or providing the traffic, utility, environmental, and stormwater analyses necessary to assess its effects. How can residents provide meaningful comments when they have not been told what may be built and have not been given the information needed to understand its potential impact?

The Larger Issue Is Public Oversight

These three hearings are not identical, and they should not be presented as parts of a single proven plan. One supports two enormous warehouses already under review. Another rewrites the development rules for the former Fort Ritchie property. The third converts residentially zoned land to a commercial highway designation without identifying a particular project.

What connects them is that each decision could expand or alter development rights and infrastructure access before residents fully understand what may eventually be built.

Washington County residents have already seen the consequences of learning about a major project too late. By the time the proposed ICE detention center became public, DHS had already selected and purchased the warehouse, and federal officials had conducted key early steps without meaningful public participation. The deed was executed on January 16, recorded on January 22, and publicly reported on January 27. Maryland later alleged that DHS had failed to conduct the required public environmental review before committing more than $100 million to the property.

Tuesday’s hearings offer something residents were denied during that process: an opportunity to ask questions before the decisions are final. But asking for public comment without giving residents the information needed to understand these proposals makes the hearings look more like a performance than a genuine attempt to hear from the public.

The hearings will take place Tuesday, July 21, at the Washington County Administration Building, 100 West Washington Street in Hagerstown:

• 9:30 a.m.: WS-25-004, 2003 Mason Dixon LLC

• 9:45 a.m.: RZ-26-002, Cascade Properties LLC

• 10 a.m.: RZ-26-003, Michael Godinez and Dominion Realty LLC

Anyone who wants to speak must submit a separate registration for each hearing by noon on Monday. The county’s registration page is available here.

Residents do not need proof of a hidden project to ask what these amendments would allow. The purpose of a public hearing is to examine the consequences before the county acts. After everything Washington County has experienced with the ICE detention warehouse, accepting vague assurances and waiting for answers until after approval would be an indefensible mistake.

Show Up and Make Your Voice Heard

If county officials are going to ask residents to comment without first providing the studies and information needed to evaluate these proposals, the public should not remain silent. Come to Tuesday’s Washington County Commissioners meeting, peacefully protest, speak during the hearings, ask questions, and demand answers before any votes are taken.

Bring signs. Bring neighbors. Bring specific questions. Demand the traffic studies, environmental reviews, stormwater analysis, utility-capacity information, groundwater protections, and other records the public deserves to see.

We’ll see you there.

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This Tuesday, July 21, at 9:00 a.m., we’ll gather outside the Washington County Commissioners meeting at 100 W. Washington Street in Hagerstown to continue our fight against the proposed ICE detention warehouse in Williamsport.

For months, the Washington County Commissioners have refused to allow public comment about the ICE detention warehouse during their meetings. Residents have repeatedly attempted to raise concerns about the project, but discussion of the warehouse has been shut down from the very beginning. Even so, every Tuesday we continue showing up because public accountability does not end when elected officials refuse to listen.

Ironically, this week’s meeting includes three separate public hearings, all of which involve careful consideration of land use, infrastructure, or environmental impacts. One concerns extending public water and sewer service to a massive warehouse development. Another involves changes to industrial zoning, and a third examines whether existing water, sewer, stormwater, and transportation infrastructure can support a relatively small rezoning request. These hearings demonstrate that the County routinely scrutinizes whether infrastructure can support new development. Yet the public has been denied the opportunity to discuss many of those same issues as they relate to the proposed ICE detention warehouse. With additional large-scale projects, including proposed data centers, on the horizon, residents deserve transparency about whether our community’s water, sewer, and other infrastructure can support these developments and how they could affect one another.

If you want to do more than protest, you can also sign up to speak during one or more of Tuesday’s public hearings. Whether you want to discuss water and sewer infrastructure, land use, zoning, environmental impacts, or simply call for greater transparency, your voice deserves to be heard. You can register in advance using the Washington County Public Hearing Sign-Up Form.

This warehouse threatens far more than one piece of property. In addition to the human rights concerns, it would place additional strain on our infrastructure, increase wastewater demands, put our creeks and waterways at risk, and raise serious questions about zoning, forest conservation, and responsible planning. These are precisely the kinds of issues county government is supposed to evaluate openly and transparently.

Your presence outside the meeting sends a powerful message. Bring a sign, stand with your neighbors, and help demonstrate that our community expects transparency, accountability, and leadership.

Public pressure matters, and it has already helped shine a national spotlight on this project, delayed its progress, and forced greater scrutiny of decisions that were made behind closed doors. It has also helped expose serious failures in transparency within our county government. Every person who shows up sends a clear message that Washington County residents are paying attention and will continue demanding accountability.

Whether you’ve attended every protest or this would be your first, your presence matters. Bring a friend, bring a sign, and stand with us as we continue opposing the ICE detention warehouse.

Tuesday, July 21
9:00 a.m.
Washington County Commissioners Office
100 W. Washington Street
Hagerstown, MD

We’ll see you there.

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When the Department of Homeland Security’s public comment period closed on June 30, more than 4,300 people had submitted comments through our campaign opposing the agency’s proposal to convert an 825,000-square-foot industrial warehouse in Washington County into a massive ICE detention center. According to DHS, that public comment process is now over. We do not agree, and neither do many of the organizations and public officials who have spent the past month demanding that the agency conduct this process in a transparent and lawful manner.

We at Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible will continue accepting public comments through NoKingsNoCamps.com and delivering every submission directly to DHS until the agency releases the environmental and infrastructure studies it relied upon and provides the public with a new 30-day opportunity to review and comment on those materials.

The reason is straightforward. DHS asked the public to weigh in on the environmental and infrastructure impacts of this project while refusing to disclose the very reports it relied upon to conclude those impacts either do not exist or are not significant. According to the agency’s own Environmental Assessment, those withheld documents include a Wastewater and Domestic Water Infrastructure Assessment, a third-party Phase I Environmental Site Assessment, a site utilities report, floodplain information, and documentation related to wetlands, water features, cultural resources, and threatened and endangered species. Despite relying on those materials, DHS never released them to the public while simultaneously concluding that it was “not aware of any potential for significant environmental impacts.”

That is not how a meaningful public comment process is supposed to work. Public participation only has value if the public has access to the information the agency itself relied upon in reaching its conclusions. Otherwise, people are not being asked to evaluate evidence. They are being asked to accept the agency’s assurances without seeing the underlying analysis.

It is also important to remember why this public comment period existed in the first place. DHS initially attempted to move forward with the project without conducting the environmental review required under federal law. After the State of Maryland challenged the agency in federal court, DHS was forced to prepare an Environmental Assessment and open a public comment period from June 1 through June 30. Yet even after the litigation, the agency never released the studies and assessments that formed the basis for its conclusions.

That concern was reinforced almost immediately after the comment period ended. Just hours after our campaign closed on June 30, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown submitted comments calling on DHS to release the environmental studies underlying its conclusions, provide another public comment period after those materials become available, prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement instead of the more limited Environmental Assessment currently underway, and even consider selling the warehouse rather than converting it into an ICE detention center. We were encouraged to see the Attorney General raise many of the same concerns that thousands of community members had already submitted through our campaign.

Shortly after Attorney General Brown’s comments were submitted and made public, we then saw more come out and oppose the ICE facility, starting with the Piscataway Conoy Tribe.

On behalf of Chief Jesse James Swann Jr and the Piscataway Conoy Tribe, this letter serves as a formal statement of concern and objection regarding reports of a possible proposal to construct an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Washington County, MD. We emphasize that neither the Tribe nor Chief Swann were consulted or notified about any such discussions or potential decisions. This absence of government-to-government communication is deeply troubling, particularly given that the proposed location falls within the ancestral homelands of the Piscataway Conoy Tribe, a Maryland State recognized Tribal Nation.

Then, soon after, the Maryland Chapter of Sierra Club submitted their public.

As three Maryland environmental agencies have warned, the impacts of this project would be significant and adverse to Williamsport, Hagerstown, and neighboring areas, and likely catastrophic with regard to its impacts on sewerage infrastructure and surrounding waterways. Given the insurmountable evidence regarding the significant impacts of this site, we urge DHS to immediately cancel its plans for a warehouse immigration detention and processing facility in Williamsport.

The proposed ICE detention center is expected to generate nearly 200,000 gallons of wastewater every day in a community that has already acknowledged significant wastewater infrastructure constraints. The site also sits adjacent to Semple Run, which flows into Conococheague Creek before reaching the Potomac River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. If DHS is confident those impacts have been thoroughly evaluated, it should have no hesitation in releasing the reports it relied upon so the public can review them for themselves.

Over the past month, this public comment campaign has received support from the ACLU of Maryland, Detention Watch Network, The Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, the Maryland Coalition to Stop the Camps, the Indivisible Maryland Coalition, Arsenal PAC / ResistMap, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and many other organizations and community leaders who believe transparency is essential when decisions of this magnitude are being made.

We also designed this campaign to streamline the process and so every submission is delivered directly to DHS. Given the agency’s conduct throughout this process, we believed it was important to create a clear and verifiable record demonstrating both the volume of public opposition and the fact that every comment was delivered.

We are not continuing this campaign because we believe public participation should be endless. We are continuing it because the public has still not been given the information DHS relied upon when it concluded this project would not have significant environmental impacts. If DHS believes those studies support its conclusions, it should release them, allow the public to review them, and provide a meaningful opportunity for informed comment. Until then, we will continue collecting and delivering every public comment submitted through NoKingsNoCamps.com.

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It was clear from the beginning that DHS was not conducting this process in good faith, but we also knew it was important to make a statement if we could show that thousands of people opposed this facility opening in our community. Throughout the entire process, the public was asked to submit comments about the project’s environmental impacts without having access to many of the environmental studies, engineering reports, infrastructure analyses, and operational plans that DHS relied upon to conclude those impacts would not be significant.

Just hours after our public comment campaign ended, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown submitted comments to DHS asking for many of the same things that thousands of residents had spent the last month demanding.

Brown called on DHS to release the studies underlying its conclusions, provide another public comment period once those studies become available, and prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement rather than the more limited Environmental Assessment currently being pursued by the agency. He also urged DHS to consider selling the warehouse rather than moving forward with plans to convert it into an immigration detention center.

The environmental review process only exists because Maryland sued DHS earlier this year after the agency attempted to move forward with the project without conducting the review required under federal law. In April, a federal judge largely halted the project and ordered DHS to begin the process it had previously attempted to avoid, leading to the thirty-day public comment period that closed on July 1.

Over the course of that month, our public comment campaign generated more than 4,300 submissions opposing the project and demanding greater transparency from DHS. Just hours later, Maryland’s Attorney General was formally demanding the release of the same studies, another opportunity for public review, and even suggesting that DHS consider selling the building altogether.

If Maryland’s Attorney General and the heads of Maryland’s Departments of Environment, Natural Resources, Transportation, and Health believe they do not have enough information to fully evaluate this project, it is difficult to argue that ordinary residents were ever given enough information to do so during a thirty-day public comment period.

DHS asked the public to trust its conclusions without allowing the public to review the evidence behind them. More than 4,300 people submitted comments anyway because they understood what was at stake for Washington County and the surrounding region. The public comment period may be over, but the demand for transparency did not end on July 1, and neither did our commitment to holding DHS accountable for the decisions it is making in our community.

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As the public comment period on the proposed Washington County ICE detention center comes to a close, we are proud to stand alongside the elected officials and organizations that have joined the call for transparency and accountability.

We stand with Maryland State Delegate Matt Schindler, Hagerstown City Council Members Caroline Anderson, Erika Bell, and Tiara Burnett, the Washington County Branch of the NAACP, the ACLU of Maryland, and every organization and community member demanding answers. Today, we joined together to submit a formal comment urging DHS to release the environmental and infrastructure studies underlying its conclusions, prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement, and provide a transparent public review process that allows for meaningful public participation.

DHS claims that converting an 825,000 square foot warehouse into a massive ICE detention center capable of producing nearly 200,000 gallons of wastewater per day will have no significant environmental impact. Yet the agency has refused to release the wastewater studies, environmental assessments, infrastructure analyses, and other reports it relied upon to reach that conclusion.

The public cannot meaningfully comment on information it has not been allowed to see.

DHS should immediately release every study and assessment used in its determination and extend the public comment period so residents, elected officials, and community organizations can review the same information available to the federal government before submitting comments that could shape the future of Washington County and the surrounding region.

Please continue submitting public comments at NoKingsNoCamps.com

The Conococheague Creek is one of the largest tributaries of the Upper Potomac River and flows from Pennsylvania into Maryland before meeting the Potomac near Williamsport. The creek has drawn significant attention from the Potomac Riverkeeper Network because of persistent bacteria contamination and broader water quality concerns.

The Conococheague Creek flows directly into the Potomac River, which continues to absorb the consequences of more than 240 million gallons of raw sewage released into the watershed through combined sewer overflows and infrastructure failures in recent years.

In August 2024, the Upper Potomac Riverkeeper announced that harmful cyanobacteria had been detected in the Conococheague Creek, prompting warnings to residents and pet owners to avoid contact with affected portions of the waterway. The discovery did not establish what caused the bloom, nor did it suggest that any single source was responsible. But it served as a reminder that the Conococheague watershed is not immune from the kinds of environmental pressures increasingly affecting waterways across the region.

All of this is relevant to the current situation. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is attempting to convert an 825,000-square-foot industrial warehouse in Williamsport, Maryland, into a massive ICE detention facility despite overwhelming concerns about its environmental impacts, infrastructure demands, and human rights implications. One of the most serious environmental concerns associated with the proposed ICE detention warehouse is wastewater. According to DHS’s own environmental review documents, the facility would generate approximately 187,000 gallons of wastewater every day. That wastewater has to go somewhere.

Washington County’s sewer infrastructure is already at capacity, and increasing the current property’s daily sewage output by over 234 times would overwhelm collection lines, pump stations, and treatment capacity. When sewer systems exceed their capacity, the result is sanitary sewer overflows, where untreated or partially treated sewage backs up into streets, properties, and waterways.

If sewage spills occur, they would not remain confined to the detention facility site. The area drains into local streams that ultimately connect to the Conococheague Creek, then flow down the Potomac River, and then the Chesapeake Bay, meaning contamination would move far beyond Washington County. Raw sewage releases would introduce bacteria, viruses, excess nutrients, and other pollutants into waterways, harming aquatic ecosystems, degrading water quality, and creating public health risks for downstream communities.

In February 2026, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown sued DHS after the agency attempted to move forward with the project without conducting the environmental review required by federal law. The lawsuit showed that DHS unlawfully fast-tracked the project while failing to adequately evaluate impacts on local waterways, wastewater systems, traffic, emergency services, public health, air quality, and surrounding communities.

This led to a federal judge largely halting the project and forcing DHS to begin the environmental review process it had previously attempted to avoid. As a result, DHS was forced to create a public record and consider public input before moving forward and led to DHS opening a 30 day period allowing the public to submit comments until July 1 as part of the environmental review process.

However, DHS is asking the public to comment on the environmental impacts of this project while refusing to release the underlying studies and assessments it says it relied upon to conclude that it is “not aware of any potential for significant environmental impacts.” Those include things like wastewater and domestic water infrastructure assessments, environmental site assessments, utilities reports, and other technical studies that the public has never been allowed to see.

None of this means the proposed detention center would cause harmful algal blooms in the Conococheague or that any future water quality problems could be traced back to a single source. That is not the argument being made here.

The question is whether DHS has adequately analyzed what adding nearly 200,000 gallons of wastewater per day could mean for a watershed that has already experienced bacteria contamination, nutrient challenges, and harmful algal blooms in recent years. Environmental review is supposed to examine projects in the context of existing conditions, not in isolation from them. The health of the watershed today matters when evaluating how much additional strain it can absorb tomorrow.

That is precisely why DHS’s refusal to release the underlying studies is so difficult to justify. The agency says it relied on wastewater infrastructure assessments, environmental site reviews, utilities analyses, and other technical documents before concluding that it was “not aware of any potential for significant environmental impacts.” Yet the public is being asked to evaluate that conclusion without seeing any of the information that produced it.

The timing of all of this raises obvious questions. On June 30, the Washington County Commissioners are scheduled to formally recognize volunteers who removed more than 51,000 pounds of litter, tires, and debris from the Conococheague and Antietam watersheds, celebrating their commitment to environmental stewardship and the protection of local waterways throughout Washington County. Those volunteers absolutely deserve that recognition.

More difficult to reconcile is the fact that this celebration of watershed protection comes as local officials continue to support a project that DHS itself acknowledges will involve significant water and wastewater demands. The proposed detention center sits beside Semple Run, upstream of the Conococheague Creek and ultimately the Potomac River, and is expected to generate nearly 200,000 gallons of wastewater every day. Washington County appears willing to applaud residents for removing pollution from these waterways while showing far less interest in scrutinizing what additional burdens may be placed on them in the future.

The contradiction becomes more difficult to ignore when viewed alongside the county’s recent discussion about slowing or temporarily pausing large-scale data center development in order to better understand potential impacts on water supplies, wastewater treatment capacity, infrastructure, and public services. County leaders have expressed a willingness to apply caution and demand an additional study when it comes to one form of large-scale development, while refusing to allow any public comment about a proposed ICE detention facility that DHS insists will not result in significant environmental impacts despite withholding the underlying studies and assessments it relied upon to reach that conclusion.

During the public comment period of the March 17, 2026, Washington County Commissioners meeting on proposed 911 fee increases, Washington County NAACP President Taj Smith drew a connection between the reported $3.7 million shortfall and the proposed ICE detention facility, a project for which the commissioners have refused to hold any public comment period or public hearing.

Washington County Commissioners President John Barr then ordered Smith removed from the meeting before she could finish her remarks.

(Side note: sign up here to register to speak at the hearing on data centers. The Washington County Commissioners do not want you to speak during this hearing and this hearing has only received community attention because a Washington County Indivisible leader discovered a hearing was added to this page.)

These decisions suggest a county government that may only be concerned about environmental impacts when it is politically convenient. After all, this is same Board of County Commissioners which only just a few months ago was pushing for legislation which would loosen septic-related regulations in Washington County, despite longstanding concerns about wastewater capacity, runoff, failing septic systems, and downstream impacts on local waterways.

Protecting waterways involves more than celebrating cleanup efforts after problems appear. It also means asking difficult questions before new environmental pressures are introduced into an already stressed watershed.

The issue extends beyond the ICE warehouse detention center itself. The Conococheague eventually empties into the Potomac River, meaning any environmental consequences associated with wastewater, nutrient loading, or infrastructure failures would not stop at the Washington County line. Communities throughout Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia share an interest in ensuring that major federal projects receive the level of environmental scrutiny required by law.

If DHS believes the project’s wastewater generation will not significantly affect local waterways, it should release the analysis supporting that conclusion. If the agency believes existing infrastructure has sufficient capacity and resilience to absorb those demands, it should release the studies supporting that conclusion as well.

The public comment period closes on July 1. Before DHS asks communities throughout the Potomac watershed to accept assurances about environmental impacts, the agency should make public the information it relied upon to reach those assurances in the first place. And Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible encourage you to tell DHS exactly that.

Here’s one very specific thing you can ask for in your public comment:

Request that DHS publicly release the reports and assessments it claims to have relied upon when concluding that it is “not aware of any potential for significant environmental impacts” from this project.

Submit your public comment now at NoKingsNoCamps.com

Just a reminder, there will be a protest this Tuesday, June 30 at 9:00 AM outside the Washington County Commissioners meeting.
Location: 100 W Washington St, Hagerstown, MD

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When most people hear about the proposed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention warehouse in Washington County, Maryland, they assume it is a local issue. That assumption is understandable. The facility would be located in a former warehouse in Williamsport, Maryland, and many of the most immediate impacts would be felt by Washington County residents. But the information Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released as part of its Environmental Assessment suggests this project is far larger and more complicated than a typical warehouse renovation.

Earlier this month, DHS revealed that the facility is designed to accommodate up to 1,500 people and would require significant utility modifications, wastewater infrastructure improvements, floodplain review procedures, and the installation of a massive 750,000-gallon water storage tank. The agency also estimates the facility could generate approximately 187,000 gallons of wastewater per day. Those disclosures raise some obvious questions. Where will all of that water come from? Can the surrounding infrastructure handle a project of this scale? What happens when a facility designed to hold up to 1,500 people is inserted into a watershed that already supports local communities, businesses, farms, and ecosystems?

Those questions are especially important because DHS originally attempted to move this project forward without conducting the Environmental Assessment that is now underway. The public only has access to this information because Maryland successfully challenged DHS in court and forced the agency to complete the environmental review required by federal law. That lawsuit not only opened the current public comment period, it also revealed details about the project that residents would otherwise never have had the opportunity to examine.

The Environmental Assessment has also highlighted something that receives far less attention than it should. The consequences of this project do not stop at the Washington County line. Water leaving the project area eventually flows through Semple Run, into Conococheague Creek, then into the Potomac River, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. Along the way, it becomes part of a network of waterways and environmental resources shared by millions of people throughout the Mid-Atlantic.

That reality matters because it means this is not simply a Washington County story. Residents of Maryland, Washington, The District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware all have a legitimate interest in understanding what DHS is proposing, what questions remain unanswered, and why now is the time to submit a public comment before the July 1 deadline.

Maryland

Maryland has the most to lose.

Unlike residents in neighboring states, Marylanders would experience both the immediate impacts of hosting the facility and any downstream consequences that follow. DHS wants to convert an 825,000-square-foot warehouse into a detention facility designed to hold up to 1,500 people. To make that happen, the agency has acknowledged that the project will require significant utility upgrades, major wastewater infrastructure improvements, floodplain review, and a 750,000-gallon water storage tank. That alone should raise eyebrows. Projects that require that level of modification are not simple warehouse renovations, no matter how DHS tries to describe them.

Marylanders should be asking some pretty basic questions. If the facility is expected to generate roughly 187,000 gallons of wastewater per day, can the existing system actually handle it? If additional upgrades become necessary later, who pays for them? What happens when infrastructure that was originally built to serve local communities is increasingly dedicated to supporting a federal detention complex? These are not abstract concerns. They are questions that affect taxpayers, local governments, and residents who depend on those systems every day.

There is also the issue of the Chesapeake Bay. Maryland taxpayers have spent decades and billions of dollars trying to improve water quality, reduce pollution, and restore one of the state’s most important natural resources. At the same time, DHS is proposing a project that would dramatically increase water consumption, wastewater generation, and stormwater runoff in a watershed that ultimately drains into the Bay. Whether those impacts end up being significant is precisely what the Environmental Assessment is supposed to evaluate. What should concern Maryland residents is that DHS initially tried to move this project forward without conducting that review at all.

And this is not just a Washington County issue. Water leaving the project area eventually becomes part of the larger watershed that connects communities across Maryland. The decisions made at this site therefore have implications far beyond the warehouse property itself. When a federal agency proposes a project of this scale in a sensitive watershed, Maryland residents have every right to demand clear answers, rigorous review, and more than vague assurances that everything will work out.

Washington, D.C.

At first glance, it might seem strange that residents of Washington, D.C. should care about a proposed detention facility more than 70 miles away in Washington County, Maryland. But the Potomac River does not begin at the District line.

The Potomac is one of the most important natural resources in the region. It provides drinking water to the Washington metropolitan area, supports recreation and tourism, and serves as the backbone of a watershed that connects communities across multiple states. It is also a river that has faced pollution challenges for decades. Combined sewer overflows, stormwater runoff, wastewater discharges, and other sources of pollution continue to affect water quality despite years of cleanup efforts and billions of dollars in public investment.

That is why the proposed ICE detention facility matters to District residents. The question is not whether Washington, D.C. will experience the immediate impacts of construction in Washington County. The question is whether DHS has fully evaluated the consequences of adding another major wastewater-generating facility to a watershed that already faces significant environmental pressures.

That is not just common sense. It is also reflected in federal environmental law. Agencies conducting environmental reviews are required to consider cumulative impacts on shared resources such as rivers, watersheds, and ecosystems.

District residents are routinely told that protecting the Potomac requires everyone to do their part. Washington, D.C. has spent billions of dollars trying to reduce sewage pollution and improve water quality in the river. Residents and businesses are expected to follow the rules, utilities are expected to invest in infrastructure, and taxpayers are expected to help fund those efforts. It is entirely reasonable to expect DHS to meet that same standard before moving forward with a project that would become part of the Potomac watershed.

Virginia

Virginia has spent decades trying to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay and the waterways that feed it. State agencies, local governments, farmers, businesses, and taxpayers have invested enormous amounts of time and money into reducing pollution, improving water quality, and restoring ecosystems throughout the watershed. Those efforts continue today because many of the challenges facing the Bay have not been solved. Nutrient pollution, stormwater runoff, wastewater discharges, and habitat degradation remain ongoing concerns throughout the region.

That is what makes the proposed ICE detention facility in Washington County relevant to Virginia residents. DHS is proposing a project that could house up to 1,500 people, generate approximately 187,000 gallons of wastewater per day, require significant utility upgrades, and involve floodplain review and major infrastructure modifications. The facility may be located in Maryland, but it sits within a watershed that ultimately connects to the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, both of which are deeply important to Virginia communities.

The Commonwealth’s connection to the Potomac is not abstract. The river forms part of Virginia’s border and supports recreation, tourism, fishing, wildlife habitat, and local economies throughout Northern Virginia and beyond. Decisions made upstream can have consequences downstream, which is why watershed management has long been treated as a regional responsibility rather than a purely local issue.

Virginia has enormous political, financial, and regulatory obligations tied to Chesapeake Bay cleanup. Virginia is constantly negotiating pollution reduction targets with EPA, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and other Bay jurisdictions. A project that adds another major wastewater source into the watershed isn’t just an environmental question. It’s a regional governance question because Virginia is one of the states that gets measured on Bay outcomes.

West Virginia

For residents of West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, the connection to the proposed ICE detention facility is far more direct than many people might realize.

Water leaving the project site eventually makes its way through the Conococheague Creek and into the Potomac River, which flows past some of West Virginia’s most recognizable communities. Places like Harpers Ferry and Shepherdstown are closely tied to the health of the river. It supports recreation, tourism, wildlife habitat, local businesses, and some of the natural landscapes that make the Eastern Panhandle unique.

That is why residents of West Virginia have a legitimate interest in what happens in Washington County. What happens upstream can affect communities downstream, which is why environmental reviews are supposed to examine more than just impacts occurring directly on a project site.

For residents of the Eastern Panhandle, the Potomac River is one of the defining natural resources of the region, and any project that could affect the watershed deserves careful scrutiny before it moves forward.

Pennsylvania

The Conococheague Creek watershed does not begin in Maryland. It begins in Pennsylvania.

That means communities like Chambersburg, Greencastle, and Mercersburg are already connected to the same watershed as the proposed ICE detention facility.

It should very much concern Pennsylvania residents that DHS initially attempted to move this project forward without conducting an Environmental Assessment. If Maryland had not sued, many of the questions now being examined might never have been asked in the first place.

People on both sides of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border have spent years working to protect and improve the waterways that connect their communities. They understand something that can sometimes get lost in discussions about state boundaries: watersheds do not care where one state ends and another begins.

For residents of southern Pennsylvania, this is a proposal involving a watershed that begins in Pennsylvania, flows through Maryland, and ultimately connects communities in both states. That alone gives Pennsylvanians a legitimate interest in the questions DHS is finally being forced to answer.

Delaware

Many people would never connect a proposed ICE detention facility in Washington County, Maryland to the State of Delaware. But they should.

Delaware has spent decades participating in efforts to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay. State agencies, local governments, environmental organizations, and taxpayers have invested significant time and spends millions of dollars a year to improve the water quality and protect one of the most important natural resources in the Mid-Atlantic. Those efforts are based on a simple reality: the health of the Bay is shaped by decisions made throughout the watershed, not just in the communities closest to the water.

That gives Delaware residents a legitimate interest in projects like the one DHS is proposing in Washington County. The question is not whether Delaware will experience the immediate impacts of construction at the site. The question is whether DHS has fully evaluated the environmental consequences of a major federal project located within a system of waterways that ultimately connects to the Chesapeake Bay.

The proposed detention facility may be located hundreds of miles from parts of Delaware, but the principle is the same. When a federal agency proposes a project with potentially significant environmental consequences, the public should not have to drag that agency into court simply to force it to study those consequences before moving forward.

The Clock Is Ticking

The public comment period for DHS’s Environmental Assessment is open now, but it closes on July 1.

The proposed ICE detention facility raises questions that extend far beyond Washington County. Residents of Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware all have a legitimate interest in ensuring those questions are fully examined before this project moves forward.

To make participation easier, we at Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible set up a public comment submission campaign at NoKingsNoCamps.com. The process takes two minutes or less:

1. Visit NoKingsNoCamps.com and fill out your contact info.

2. In the body of your email, raise specific environmental concerns you have about the project.

3. Customize the template as much as possible and hit send.

Your comment will become part of the official administrative record that DHS is required to consider as part of its Environmental Assessment.

July 1 will be here before you know it. Visit NoKingsNoCamps.com and submit your comment today. Once the public comment period closes, the opportunity to have your concerns included in the record closes with it.

⭐ Bonus points for also clicking the orange
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Federal contractors working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security rely heavily on careful language when describing the 825,000-square-foot facility planned for Williamsport, Maryland. Terms like “operational footprint” and “site management” show up repeatedly, as if the choice of wording can soften what is actually being proposed.

But nothing about this project is theoretical for the people who live here. It connects directly into the systems that keep this community running. Water, sewer, stormwater, and local infrastructure are not side details. They are the foundation.

The federal notice lays out enough technical detail to make the scale of the project impossible to ignore. What is being proposed is a massive, resource-heavy facility being inserted into a system that already operates near its limits.

The Numbers in the DHS Blueprint

For months, local officials stayed largely quiet while federal planning moved forward. Now, with the public comment window open until July 1, the details are finally visible in a way the public can actually respond to. And the details matter.

The plan includes a 750,000-gallon on-site water storage tank. That is more than an Olympic-sized swimming pool. It is not a minor backup system. It is a core requirement to keep the facility running at the scale being proposed.

The facility is also designed to hold up to 1,500 people, which immediately translates into sustained demand on sewer systems, pump stations, and treatment capacity. The required modifications are not routine upgrades. They are structural changes to how local utilities function on a daily basis.

On top of that, the site work extends into floodplain-adjacent areas, where large-scale paving and grading will increase stormwater runoff. That runoff does not stay contained on a site plan. It moves downstream into surrounding land and waterways that are already sensitive to changes in flow and volume.

A System Built in 1928 Being Asked to Carry a Modern Industrial Load

Washington County, Maryland depends on a water system first built in 1928. It was designed for a small population and steady municipal use. It was never designed to support a high-volume federal detention operation running continuously at this scale.

Local infrastructure is already serving homes, schools, and small businesses under real constraints. There is no hidden surplus capacity waiting to absorb a project of this magnitude. Every additional demand placed on the system forces tradeoffs somewhere else.

That is the part that often gets lost in official language. Capacity is not flexible just because it is discussed in planning documents. It is physical. Pipes carry only so much. Treatment plants process only so much. Pump stations move only so much. And once that limit is reached, something else gives.

And when systems are pushed past their intended range, the costs do not disappear. They shift downward into long-term maintenance, emergency repairs, and accelerated infrastructure upgrades that local ratepayers are left to cover. The federal government does not carry those costs over time, and private contractors have no stake in what happens after construction is complete.

A Sudden Standard That Is Not Being Applied Consistently

Just last week, county leadership signaled hesitation around large-scale data center development, citing concerns about water usage, wastewater capacity, and overall infrastructure strain. And those concerns are real.

But that raises a straightforward question. If infrastructure limits are serious enough to justify pausing one category of development for further study, why do those same limits not trigger the same caution when it comes to a federal detention facility with comparable or greater utility demands.

The standard cannot shift depending on the project. Either the infrastructure constraints matter, or they do not.

The Public Comment Window Is Now Open

Because litigation has forced a formal environmental review process, the federal government is now required to accept public comments on infrastructure, environmental, and community impacts.

That comment window is open until July 1, and it becomes part of the official administrative record used in future review and potential legal proceedings.

This is not a procedural formality. It is one of the only opportunities the public has to force the real-world constraints of this project into the record that regulators and courts must consider.

Make Your Voice Part of the Official Environmental Record

This project is not just an infrastructure question. It is an environmental one.

A facility of this scale would place sustained pressure on local water systems, sewer capacity, stormwater controls, and surrounding watershed conditions. Those systems are not separate from the environment. They are part of it. When they are overwhelmed, the impact does not stay on paper or within utility lines. It moves into streams, floodplains, groundwater, and downstream ecosystems.

Because Maryland successfully challenged the attempt to fast-track this project without a full environmental review, the federal government is now required under law to collect public comments on these impacts. That includes water usage, wastewater discharge, stormwater runoff, and the broader environmental consequences of stressing aging municipal systems.

That comment window is open until July 1.

This is the moment to make the environmental record specific. General objections are easy to dismiss. Concrete documentation of environmental strain is not.

When you submit your comment, focus on how the proposed 750,000-gallon on-site water system, combined with sustained high-volume use, affects local watershed health and utility discharge capacity. Ask how increased wastewater output and stormwater runoff will impact floodplains, downstream water quality, and already constrained treatment systems.

These are environmental questions, and they belong in the official record

Take Action Now

Submit your public comment here:

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-dhs-stop-the-ice-warehouse-in-washington-county

It takes two minutes or less. We have created a system that allows you to customize your submission and ensure that DHS receives it directly as part of the official environmental record.

The most important thing is to submit your comment before the July 1 deadline so these environmental impacts are formally documented and cannot be ignored.

Click here now to submit your public comment opposing the ICE detention warehouse DHS wants to open in Washington County, Maryland!

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A draft ordinance prepared for consideration by the Washington County Commissioners on June 30 would impose a six-month moratorium on new data center projects throughout the county while officials study their impacts on infrastructure, water resources, roads, public facilities, and the environment.

The three-page draft ordinance, titled “An Ordinance to Provide for a Moratorium Concerning Data Centers in Washington County,” appears to have been prepared by the County Attorney’s Office and would temporarily halt the acceptance, review, and approval of new data center projects while county officials evaluate what the ordinance describes as the economic, social, and environmental risks associated with such developments.

According to the ordinance, county officials are concerned about high energy consumption, strain on utility infrastructure, significant water usage, environmental impacts, road and infrastructure demands, and the effects large-scale projects can have on public facilities and surrounding communities.

Ordinarily, a proposed data center moratorium would have little to do with the ongoing controversy surrounding the proposed ICE detention center in Washington County. The ordinance never mentions DHS, ICE, the warehouse, Hopewell Road, Wright Road, or the detention center itself. Yet the concerns cited throughout the ordinance closely mirror many of the same concerns residents, environmental groups, state agencies, and DHS itself have spent months debating in connection with the warehouse project.

Questions about wastewater capacity, water consumption, environmental impacts, emergency services, road infrastructure, and the strain on local resources have been central to the detention center debate from the beginning. The State of Maryland raised many of those same concerns in its lawsuit challenging the project. DHS ultimately acknowledged that the facility required a formal environmental review because of its potential impacts. Residents have spent months asking county officials to take those concerns seriously.

Now the county is arguing that similar concerns justify putting an entire category of development on hold while additional study is conducted.

That alone should be newsworthy. What makes the document particularly interesting is the context in which it appears.

Through Maryland Public Information Act requests, we at Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible previously obtained a copy of the non-disclosure agreements signed by Washington County officials in December 2025 concerning a confidential land deal. Those agreements were executed just weeks before the public learned DHS was purchasing the warehouse and before county officials publicly acknowledged the project. While the County has never publicly confirmed that the NDAs were related to the warehouse transaction itself, their timing raised significant questions about what county officials knew, when they knew it, and what discussions were taking place behind closed doors during the same period. Those questions have never been fully answered.

Public records obtained through separate MPIA requests have also shown that Washington County economic development officials were actively marketing the warehouse property before DHS purchased it. Those records reveal discussions with brokers, conversations about infrastructure improvements in the Wright Road corridor, and efforts to attract major occupants to the site. More recently, the Washington County Commissioners approved a controversial consulting agreement with former County Administrator Greg Murray during a special session that generated significant public criticism. Murray’s contract specifically authorizes him to advise the county on water and sewer deficiencies, growth impacts, infrastructure concerns, and related matters affecting the warehouse corridor.

One reason that special session is so controversial is because Commissioner President John Barr cast the deciding vote after the commission deadlocked - a vote that could benefit his family considerably. That special session reinforced a growing concern that Washington County Commissioners are conducting important public business behind closed doors, limiting transparency, sidestepping meaningful public input, and creating the appearance of conflicts of interest in decisions that affect the entire community.

Taken individually, these facts may not appear connected. Taken together, however, they show county officials engaged in ongoing discussions about development, infrastructure, growth, water, sewer capacity, and land use at the same time they were conducting confidential discussions and approving consulting contracts related to those very issues. Against that backdrop, the sudden appearance of a proposed data center moratorium raises an obvious question: why are county officials concerned enough about data centers to draft legislation halting them, and what prompted that concern in the first place?

What prompted county officials to begin drafting legislation focused specifically on data centers?

Was there a particular proposal under consideration somewhere in Washington County?

Were county officials receiving inquiries from developers interested in large-scale projects?

Were county officials already discussing potential data center development somewhere in Washington County before this ordinance was drafted?

Or is the timing entirely coincidental and unrelated to any of the discussions that occurred during the NDA period?

Moratoriums rarely appear without a reason. Local governments typically do not just begin drafting legislation to halt an entire category of development unless there is development pressure, a pending proposal, inquiries from developers, or broader concerns about projects that may be on the horizon.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the ordinance has nothing to do with data centers at all. It’s that Washington County’s stated justification for the moratorium is that data centers can have significant impacts on utility infrastructure, water resources, roads, public facilities, and the surrounding environment. County officials argue that those impacts deserve additional study before new projects move forward.

Now that’s rich. It is also strikingly similar to the position residents, environmental advocates, and the State of Maryland have been urging Washington County to take with respect to the proposed ICE detention center.

For months, residents have raised concerns about wastewater capacity, water consumption, infrastructure demands, environmental impacts, traffic, emergency services, and the strain a facility housing up to 1,500 detainees could place on local resources. Many of those concerns ultimately became part of Maryland’s lawsuit against DHS. DHS itself eventually acknowledged that the project required a formal environmental review.

Yet when residents raised those very concerns about the ICE detention center, county officials suddenly found no need for caution. There was no call for a pause, no proposal for a moratorium, and no insistence on further study before moving forward. Most remarkably, they denied the public any meaningful opportunity to be heard. To this day, Washington County residents still have not been allowed to comment before their elected officials on one of the most consequential projects in the county’s recent history.

Now, in the case of data centers, the Washington County is proposing exactly that.

If infrastructure demands, water consumption, environmental impacts, and public facility concerns justify halting data center development until additional analysis can be completed, why did those same concerns not justify a similar pause when DHS announced plans to convert an 825,000-square-foot industrial warehouse into a detention facility designed to hold up to 1,500 people?

The ordinance never addresses that contradiction. But once you notice it, it becomes difficult to ignore.

The ordinance does not answer every question raised by its existence. We know the warehouse was being marketed before DHS purchased it. We know county officials were discussing infrastructure improvements in the area. We know county officials signed NDAs concerning a confidential land deal just weeks before the public learned DHS was purchasing the warehouse. We know the Washington County Commissioners approved the hiring of Greg Murray to advise the county on growth, infrastructure, water, and sewer issues affecting the warehouse corridor. What we do not know is what prompted county officials to begin drafting legislation focused specifically on data centers, whether a particular proposal triggered concern, or how long those discussions have been taking place.

The answers are unlikely to come from press releases or carefully crafted public statements. They are far more likely to be found in emails, planning documents, meeting notes, communications with developers, and internal county records. The proposed moratorium does not reveal where any potential data center project might be located or whether any specific proposal exists at all. What it does do is raise new questions about why county officials suddenly believe data centers warrant a six-month pause, what discussions led to that conclusion, and whether those discussions reveal another chapter of a story the public still does not fully understand.

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For months, we at Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible, alongside concerned residents from across the region, have been demanding transparency, accountability, and answers about the proposed ICE detention center in Washington County, Maryland.

Week after week, hundreds of residents have protested, attended meetings, submitted records requests, spoken to reporters, conducted research, and organized their neighbors because we believe a project of this magnitude deserves far more public scrutiny than it has received. As more information has emerged about closed-door discussions, non-disclosure agreements, infrastructure concerns, environmental impacts, and controversial decisions connected to the proposed facility, public trust in the process has continued to erode.

Many people in our community are frustrated. Many are angry. But above all, people are determined not to let a massive detention facility quietly move forward without a full public accounting of its impacts on our county.

Now, residents have an opportunity to put their concerns directly into the federal record.

As part of its environmental review process, the Department of Homeland Security is accepting public comments through July 1 on the proposed ICE detention center. Every submitted comment becomes part of the official review process and helps document the project’s potential impacts on our community, infrastructure, environment, public services, economy, and quality of life.

That is why we are encouraging everyone who cares about the future of Washington County to submit a public comment. If you agree that this project deserves careful scrutiny, you can submit a comment directly through our Action Network campaign here:

👉 https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-dhs-stop-the-ice-warehouse-in-washington-county

The federal government is asking for public input. We believe Washington County residents deserve to be heard.

And if you’re not sure what to write, we’ve done the research for you. Below are ten reasons we oppose the proposed ICE detention center and ten concerns you can use, adapt, or build upon when submitting your own public comment to DHS.

1.) Human Rights

For many residents, this is the core issue.

ICE detention facilities across the country have faced years of allegations involving unsafe conditions, inadequate medical care, abuse, neglect, family separation, and violations of detainees’ basic rights. People in Washington County have watched those stories unfold nationally and do not want their own community becoming part of that system.

In March, we wrote about growing concerns from doctors and medical professionals regarding conditions inside ICE detention facilities, including reports involving overcrowding, lack of medical care, unsanitary conditions, preventable deaths, and worsening mental health crises. In many cases, detainees are held in conditions that medical experts and human rights advocates say can have devastating long-term physical and psychological consequences. Why should Washington County help expand that system here in our own backyard?

There is a difference between enforcing immigration law and building large-scale detention infrastructure in local communities. We do not want Washington County becoming nationally associated with confinement, ICE detention expansion, and the warehousing of human beings. Many of us view remaining silent about this as a form of complicity.

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2.) Wastewater, Runoff, and Pollution

One of the most serious concerns surrounding the proposed ICE warehouse involves wastewater, pollution, and long-term environmental strain on the region.

Right now, the warehouse receives water from the City of Hagerstown and reportedly has an approved allocation of just 800 gallons per day. That could change dramatically if the facility is converted into a large-scale detention center housing anywhere from 500 to 2,000 detainees. According to findings referenced by the Maryland Department of the Environment, the proposed detention facility could generate at least 187,500 gallons of wastewater per day.

That is an enormous increase, and residents have repeatedly questioned whether local infrastructure can realistically handle that kind of demand without major environmental consequences.

In March, KVG LLC was awarded a three-year, $642 million contract to retrofit the warehouse so it can hold detainees. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown later warned in court filings that sediment runoff connected to the construction work is likely to affect Semple Run, the stream that borders the southern and western edges of the property and receives discharges from the site’s existing stormwater management system.

That matters because Semple Run is not an isolated stream. It is an important cool-water tributary of Conococheague Creek, which ultimately feeds into the Potomac River. Pollution entering Semple Run would not simply stay near the warehouse site. It could impact downstream waterways throughout the region.

We are especially concerned because Maryland’s lawsuit argues that federal officials failed to conduct the kind of full environmental review normally required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) before moving forward with the project. For many people in Washington County, that raises a larger question: if officials are confident the project is safe, why rush past the environmental review process?

Residents are also concerned about stormwater runoff, floodplain impacts, sewer capacity, and what happens if local systems become overloaded over time. People here understand that wastewater systems are not unlimited. They understand that once environmental infrastructure is strained beyond capacity, communities can spend decades paying the price for it.

3.) Public Health

Public health concerns have become one of the biggest reasons residents continue protesting outside the Washington County Commissioners meetings.

In March, we held a protest focused specifically on the public health risks tied to the proposed ICE warehouse project. The demonstration came after dozens of doctors, nurses, therapists, and healthcare professionals signed a public letter warning about the human and medical consequences associated with immigration detention facilities.

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In that letter, more than 50 healthcare professionals raised concerns about conditions that have repeatedly been documented inside ICE detention centers across the country, including overcrowding, delayed medical care, lack of adequate mental health treatment, infectious disease risks, poor sanitation, dehydration, malnutrition, and preventable deaths. The signatories warned that detention itself can create severe psychological trauma, particularly for vulnerable populations and people with preexisting medical or mental health conditions.

Residents are also worried about the broader strain a facility of this scale could place on local healthcare infrastructure. This ICE detention center would inevitably create additional demand on emergency medical services, hospitals, ambulances, and healthcare systems that are already overstretched.

At a time when Washington County families already face long waits for healthcare access and increasing pressure on local medical systems, adding a massive detention facility would create even more strain on resources the community already depends on every day. The question is simple: why would Washington County want to become part of expanding a system that medical professionals themselves are warning about?

4.) It Will Hurt Tourism

Washington County has spent years trying to promote itself as a destination for history, outdoor recreation, small businesses, local events, and scenic tourism.

People visit this region for the C&O Canal, Civil War history, hiking trails, wineries, festivals, restaurants, and the overall character of the area. And becoming nationally associated with a massive ICE detention facility would fundamentally damage that image and discourage visitors from wanting to spend time or money here.

Earlier this year, more than 120 civil rights and civil society organizations, including the ACLU and Amnesty International, issued a travel advisory ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup warning international visitors about the United States’ expanding immigration enforcement system and conditions inside ICE detention facilities. The advisory warned travelers about risks including detention, racial profiling, aggressive immigration enforcement, and what it described as “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” inside ICE detention facilities.

That kind of international attention matters. Tourism depends heavily on perception, reputation, and whether people view a place as welcoming and safe. Communities do not spend years building tourism economies just to become nationally known for detention infrastructure and political controversy.

Residents are concerned that Washington County could increasingly become associated with ICE expansion, protests, lawsuits, and federal detention operations instead of the things that actually make this region special.

Communities develop reputations that can last for decades. Many people simply do not want Washington County’s identity tied to detention facilities, government secrecy, and national controversy.

5.) It Will Drop Property Values

Residents living near the proposed site have legitimate concerns about property values. Large controversial institutional projects often affect how nearby areas are perceived by homebuyers and investors. Increased traffic, security infrastructure, environmental concerns, industrial activity, and constant controversy can change the character of an area over time.

Recent Zillow housing forecast data suggests those concerns may already be beginning to emerge in Williamsport. While Washington County as a whole is still projected to experience modest home value appreciation, Williamsport appears to be underperforming many surrounding ZIP codes during the same period DHS is attempting to open the massive ICE detention warehouse. The data does not prove the facility is causing this trend, but it raises legitimate questions about whether the proposed detention center and the controversy surrounding it are beginning to affect buyer sentiment locally.

And there is growing research suggesting those concerns are not unfounded. A recent economics study from North Carolina State University examining correctional and rehabilitation facilities found that nearby property values declined by an average of roughly 20 percent after new facilities opened, with larger facilities associated with even greater impacts.

As one Williamsport homeowner who lives directly across the street from the warehouse recently told Tracee Wilkins of NBC 4, after living there for nearly 30 years, she now plans on moving.

For many families, their home is the single largest investment they will ever make. People are understandably worried about decisions that could negatively affect that investment and reshape surrounding neighborhoods.

6.) Increase in Taxes, Reduction in Tax Revenue

Local taxpayers will most likely eventually absorb costs connected to the project, even if the federal government is involved. As we reported in March after filing a Maryland Public Information Act request, Washington County leaders requested up to $386 million from the federal government for infrastructure improvements needed with the opening of the ICE detention center.

Large facilities create additional burdens involving roads, infrastructure upgrades, emergency services, planning, environmental oversight, and legal disputes. Communities are often promised that projects will pay for themselves, but history shows local governments frequently end up carrying unexpected costs years later.

The Department of Homeland Security’s purchase of the warehouse has also removed the property from the local tax base entirely. Once federally owned, the property becomes tax-exempt, meaning Washington County and other local entities no longer collect property tax revenue from one of the largest industrial properties in the region. According to Radio Free Hub City, this equates to the community losing two million dollars in tax revenue in 2026 and $700,000 every year afterward.

That loss matters. Property taxes help fund schools, infrastructure, public services, emergency response systems, and local government operations. When large federally owned facilities become tax-exempt, municipalities and school systems can lose significant long-term revenue while still being expected to handle the indirect impacts and infrastructure demands connected to the project.

At a time when many families are already struggling financially, residents are asking why Washington County should take on additional costs and risks connected to a controversial project that so many people oppose.

7.) Increase in Utility Costs

Water and sewer infrastructure upgrades are expensive, and somebody eventually pays for them. Large-scale facilities place enormous pressure on existing water infrastructure, especially in rural communities that rely on limited municipal systems or private wells. That kind of demand can lower water pressure, strain local supply systems, and require costly infrastructure upgrades that local households ultimately end up paying for through higher utility bills and expanded water and sewer costs.

If local systems require expansion or additional capacity to support the detention facility, those costs will eventually be passed on to ordinary households through higher utility bills.

People throughout Washington County are already dealing with rising costs for basic necessities. We do not want to see utility systems strained further by a massive detention operation.

8.) Overwhelming the Area

One of the biggest concerns is the sheer scale of the proposed project compared to the surrounding area.

Facilities like this do not quietly blend into communities. They change traffic patterns, infrastructure needs, political dynamics, public perception, and the overall character of a region. In smaller communities especially, projects of this size can completely alter the social and economic fabric of daily life.

Many residents fear Washington County could become defined by this facility in ways that would be impossible to reverse.

9.) Strain on Local Resources & Infrastructure

Projects like this place demands on nearly every part of local infrastructure.

Roads, utilities, emergency response systems, healthcare networks, environmental systems, public planning departments, and local services all face additional pressure when large institutional facilities are introduced into a community.

Residents have repeatedly asked whether county officials have honestly accounted for those long-term impacts. Many feel those questions still have not been fully answered.

10.) Safety & Community Disruption

People are also concerned about the broader disruption a facility like this could bring to the area.

That includes concerns about increased traffic, security operations, law enforcement coordination, protests and counterprotests, emergency incidents, and the tension that often follows highly controversial federal projects.

Beyond physical safety concerns, many residents are worried about the emotional impact of normalizing large-scale detention infrastructure in the community. They want Washington County known for families, neighborhoods, parks, local businesses, and opportunity. Not for becoming another detention hub.

Take Action Before July 1

The public comment period is one of the few opportunities residents have to ensure their concerns become part of the official federal record. Whether your concerns are about environmental impacts, wastewater capacity, property values, public health, infrastructure, emergency services, government transparency, or the human consequences of detention, your voice matters.

This is not just a Maryland issue. The proposed ICE detention center sits near the headwaters of waterways that ultimately flow beyond Washington County and Maryland’s borders. Any environmental impacts associated with wastewater overflows, stormwater runoff, or other infrastructure failures could affect communities downstream throughout the broader region, including Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

DHS is accepting public comments through July 1, but the deadline is approaching quickly.

If you agree that this proposed ICE detention center deserves greater scrutiny, we encourage you to submit a public comment today:

👉 https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-dhs-stop-the-ice-warehouse-in-washington-county

It only takes a few minutes, and every comment helps demonstrate the depth of community concern surrounding this project.

Together, we can ensure that Washington County’s voice is heard and that the concerns of communities throughout the region are part of the official record.

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For months, we at Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible have warned that the proposed ICE detention facility in Williamsport would bring massive environmental, infrastructure, and public accountability concerns to Washington County. Now, newly released DHS documents are confirming just how extensive this project really is.

In a recently released federal notice, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it is beginning a formal Environmental Assessment process for the proposed ICE detention facility at the massive 825,000-square-foot warehouse in Williamsport, Maryland.

The announcement contains major new details about the scale of the project and the infrastructure required to support it.

Among the most alarming revelations:

• DHS invites public comments on environmental conditions surrounding the project.

• ICE has officially begun the Section 106 process, the federal historic preservation review process required when projects may impact historic or cultural resources.

• The warehouse will be designed to accommodate up to 1,500 people, which is fascinating, considering in April, DHS argued the facility would only hold 542.

• DHS plans to install a massive 750,000-gallon water storage tank onsite.

• The project will require extensive sewer and utility modifications, including potential expansion of off-site wastewater infrastructure.

• DHS also confirmed the project involves floodplain review procedures under federal environmental rules.

After months of legal fights, public pressure, and growing scrutiny, DHS is now acknowledging many of the environmental and infrastructure concerns residents have been raising since this project was first announced. DHS is describing a large-scale detention operation that will require major infrastructure upgrades, expanded utilities, new security installations, and long-term impacts on Washington County.

The plans described by DHS include perimeter security fencing, guard shacks, new generators, telecom infrastructure, secure recreation yards, cafeterias, medical rooms, and even an indoor firing range for staff.

From the very beginning, residents throughout Washington County have raised serious concerns about wastewater capacity, floodplain risks, environmental impacts, public health consequences, strain on emergency services, and the long-term effects this facility could have on our community. Now DHS itself is acknowledging many of those same concerns in federal documents.

And communities across the country are quickly learning what can happen when ICE rapidly expands detention facilities with little transparency or local accountability.

Just look at Delaney Hall in New Jersey. That facility has become the center of mounting protests, lawsuits, community outrage, allegations of unsafe conditions, and escalating conflict between local officials, advocates, and federal immigration authorities. Across the country, warehouse-style detention expansion is raising growing concerns about human rights abuses, medical neglect, environmental impacts, and the rapid privatization of immigration detention infrastructure.

We are fighting now because we refuse to allow Washington County to become the next national example of what happens when federal agencies attempt to force through massive detention projects without public trust or public consent.

That is why we are calling on residents from across Maryland and the surrounding region to join us on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 at 9:00 AM outside the Washington County Commissioners building in Hagerstown.

This rally will mark one full year without public comment at County Commissioners meetings while residents continue demanding transparency and accountability surrounding the proposed ICE warehouse.

Protest Details

What: Rally opposing the proposed ICE detention facility in Williamsport and marking one year without public comment at County Commissioners meetings

When: Tuesday, June 9, 2026 at 9:00 AM

Where: 100 W. Washington St., Hagerstown, MD

Hosted By: Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible

No community should be forced to accept a massive ICE detention complex without transparency, accountability, or public input.

Washington County deserves better.

And together, we can stop the ICE warehouse.

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That distrust was impossible to separate from the meeting itself. Residents are already questioning executive sessions, NDAs, infrastructure agreements, and the county’s handling of issues tied to the proposed DHS/ICE detention warehouse in Williamsport, Maryland. Now, layered on top of that, are growing concerns about whether Commissioner President John Barr is ignoring potential conflicts of interest and participating in votes involving projects and infrastructure decisions that would indirectly benefit his family’s business interests. By the end of Thursday’s meeting, it was hard not to feel like public trust in county leadership had deteriorated even further.

The commissioners had already spent part of the morning in executive session before the public meeting began. That’s an important detail because so much of the public frustration surrounding the warehouse project revolves around the belief that important conversations about infrastructure, development, and county decision making are increasingly happening behind closed doors.

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Then came the opening prayer from Commissioner President John Barr. Barr asked God to forgive the commissioners’ “obvious enemies” and the people “shouting about, cursing about” county officials. It was an unusually personal and politically charged way to open a government meeting, especially considering the county is already facing mounting scrutiny over secrecy, ethics concerns, and infrastructure issues connected to the proposed ICE facility.

At a time when residents are demanding more transparency and accountability, hearing the President of the Board of Washington County Commissioners publicly describe critics and constituents as “obvious enemies” during a prayer is difficult to ignore.

About fifteen minutes later, the tension became visible. Someone in the audience interrupted Barr while he was speaking, and instead of engaging with the disruption, Barr immediately grabbed the gavel, declared recess, and abruptly paused the meeting. The whole sequence was awkward and revealing at the same time. Barr had opened the meeting talking about “obvious enemies,” and moments later appeared eager to avoid any direct interaction once tensions surfaced in the room.

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The largest issue on the agenda was the GDMS consulting contract involving former county official Greg Murray. On paper, the agreement was presented as a broad consulting arrangement related to water, sewer, and long-term infrastructure planning. But anyone who has been paying attention to the fight to stop the ICE warehouse from opening in Williamsport understood why the discussion carried larger political implications.

Water and sewer infrastructure have become central to the legal and political fight over the proposed ICE warehouse outside Hagerstown. State agencies, environmental officials, and residents have spent months raising concerns about floodplain impacts, sewer capacity, infrastructure strain, and whether the surrounding area can realistically support a large detention facility.

Against that backdrop, the county’s decision to move forward with a vaguely worded consulting contract that included references to “other tasks that are as yet unidentified” naturally raised questions.

Notably, some commissioners appeared uncomfortable with the process as well. One commissioner openly acknowledged that “the optics” surrounding the contract looked bad and argued the county should slow the process down and search for additional consultants before approving anything. Another repeatedly pressed for clearer timelines and objectives. The discussion itself became increasingly disorganized, with interruptions, procedural confusion, and visible frustration between commissioners.

Things became even stranger once the vote began.

The contract appeared headed toward a deadlock, with two commissioners voting in favor and two voting against it. Based on the confusion during the exchange, it genuinely sounded like at least some commissioners believed Barr was not planning to vote, likely because of his obvious longtime connections to Greg Murray through county government and water infrastructure work.

Then Barr suddenly clarified that he had not yet made his comments “and my ruling,” prompting another commissioner to ask, somewhat incredulously, “Shouldn’t you have done that during discussion?”

Barr then launched into an extended speech about reservoirs, aging infrastructure, California wildfires, and his frustration with “talking about water” for the last twenty years before ultimately casting the tie-breaking vote himself in favor of the contract.

Technically, Barr never formally recused himself from the vote. But the confusion surrounding the process clearly created the impression that at least some people in the room believed he either intended to abstain or was not initially planning to participate until the deadlock emerged.

Given Barr’s longstanding connections to Murray, the sequence only intensified concerns about the appearance of the vote and the broader handling of the contract.

Those concerns became even more complicated when looking at the second major issue discussed that afternoon involving infrastructure improvements connected to JGBLI property at Fort Ritchie.

As Radio Free Hub City wrote,

During a special session, the Washington County Board of County Commissioners voted to approve both the water/sewer consulting contract with former County Administrator Greg Murray as well as the county agreeing to improve the sewer lines on private property owned by JGBLI, 63 acres which was given to JGBLI by the county. To further complicate matters, JGBLI currently has two open electrical contracts with Ellsworth Electric, a company currently owned by Commissioner Barr’s family. Commissioner Barr did not abstain from the vote or disclose any potential conflict of interests, despite the agreement indirectly benefiting his family business.

Radio Free Hub City further wrote:

By failing to abstain in voting for the May 21, 2026 amendment, Commissioner Barr voted to have the County absorb the massive subsurface sewer liabilities, which is the primary roadblock holding up the JGBLI subdivision. Approving this public subsidy directly ensures that the development can proceed, which in turn guarantees that Ellsworth Electric can continue to execute its active contracts on those exact lots. Commissioner Barr did not disclose any potential conflict of interests during the session.

By the end of the meeting, things boiled over completely. One attendee repeatedly interrupted proceedings, accused commissioners directly of corruption, and was eventually removed by deputies after shouting, “You’re corrupt. You know you’re corrupt and that’s why you shouldn’t be elected again.”

Regardless of how people feel about that outburst, it reflected something very real that has been building in Washington County for months now. Public distrust surrounding the warehouse controversy has spread far beyond the project itself. Increasingly, residents are viewing infrastructure contracts, executive sessions, development agreements, and county decision making through the lens of the proposed ICE facility and the perception that too much is happening outside public view.

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Meeting: Washington County Board of County Commissioners Special Meeting
When: Thursday, May 21, 2026, 8:30 AM
Where: Washington County administration building, Hagerstown
Presiding: Commission President John F. Barr
Source agenda: https://www.washco-md.net/wp-content/uploads/05212026-Open-Agenda-REVISED-PACKET.pdf

Why this meeting matters

A “special meeting” of the Board of County Commissioners is a focused session called outside the regular schedule. Tomorrow’s meeting has three open items, a closed session, and a packet that was revised on short notice. Two of the three items raise serious questions about how Washington County contracts for infrastructure work, and the closed session, as published, appears to mis-cite the Open Meetings Act in ways the statute itself addresses directly.

This guide walks through each item in plain language, then explains what’s wrong with the way the closed session is framed and what can be done if a violation occurs.

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What’s on the agenda

Item 1: A consulting contract that raises ethics concerns

The Commissioners are being asked to approve a consulting contract with GDMS, LLC, a small company whose principal is Gregory B. Murray.

Murray’s history matters here:

• He was Washington County’s Administrator until October 2017, when he was forced out under contested circumstances.

• His wife, Debra Murray, was fired at the same time over an unauthorized $250,000 loan tied to a county landfill project.

• He later became City Manager in Punta Gorda, Florida, and resigned in November 2024 after a publicly reported incident at a bar and a contested severance vote.

• Debra Murray has been CFO of Ellsworth Electric since 2018.

• Ellsworth Electric was founded by Commissioner John F. Barr, who remains chairman of the board.

So the company being awarded the contract is run by a former County Administrator whose spouse works for a business controlled by the Commissioner presiding over tomorrow’s meeting.

The contract itself includes:

• A one-sided attorneys’ fees clause requiring the County to pay GDMS legal costs in disputes.

• A broad scope allowing the County Administrator to assign additional work without formally amending the contract.

The scope overlaps with issues central to the federal lawsuit Maryland v. Noem, including sewer capacity, infrastructure readiness, and growth impacts connected to the proposed ICE detention warehouse near Williamsport.

Item 2: The County pays for sewer upgrades on private land

The second item amends a 2019 agreement involving the former Fort Ritchie property, now known as Cascade Town Centre Development.

Under the amendment:

1. The County builds sewer improvements on private property.

2. The private sewer system is transferred to the County.

3. The County operates it.

4. In return, the developer upgrades several roads and deeds them to the County.

The amendment is tied to subdividing the property into 21 lots.

The most notable issue is the staff report listing the fiscal impact as “N/A” despite the County funding sewer construction.

Item 3: A labor agreement

The third item is a five-year extension of the union contract covering multiple County departments including Water Quality, Highway, Transit, and Emergency Communications.

This item is largely routine.

The closed session

The BoCC plans to enter closed session after the open items.

The published notice states:

“To consult with counsel to obtain legal advice on a legal matter (7). Open session discussion would breach attorney/client privilege. Legal advice pertaining to statutory interpretation and potential litigation.”

The guide argues the notice raises several Open Meetings Act concerns.

Key concerns raised in the guide

1. Wrong exception cited

The notice cites exception (7), which covers obtaining legal advice from counsel.

However, the notice also references “potential litigation,” which falls under a separate exception, (8), under Maryland law.

The guide argues the Board may be relying on the wrong statutory justification.

2. Lack of specificity

The phrase “statutory interpretation” does not identify which statute is being discussed.

The guide argues this prevents meaningful public oversight.

3. Questions about Open Meetings Act compliance training

Maryland law requires public bodies to designate at least one member trained in Open Meetings Act requirements before holding closed sessions.

The guide recommends a Maryland Public Information Act request to verify compliance.

Possible enforcement mechanisms

The guide outlines three primary remedies:

• Open Meetings Compliance Board complaints

• Circuit court petitions under §3-401

• Civil penalties under §3-402

It also discusses timelines, disclosure requirements, and procedural standards under Maryland law.

Conclusion:

• The ethics concerns discussed are allegations and pattern evidence, not adjudicated misconduct.

• The legality of the closed session depends partly on what is actually said during the meeting.

• The revised packet has not yet been fully compared to the original version.

• Open Meetings Act challenges must be tied to specific procedural violations.

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A new episode of Downtown Dialogue, hosted by Tony Forame, puts a national spotlight on what Hagerstown Rapid Response, Washington County Indivisible, and our neighbors have been warning about from the beginning. Downtown Dialogue is a YouTube channel focused on political, social, and community issues, with Forame using on-the-ground reporting and long-form interviews to dig into stories that deserve more attention. In this episode, he comes to Washington County to examine the proposed ICE detention warehouse in Williamsport and the local movement fighting to stop it.

The video begins outside the massive warehouse the Department of Homeland Security wants to turn into an ICE detention center for up to 1,500 people. Before it became the center of a federal lawsuit and public outrage, this building was meant for storage and shipping. It was not built to house human beings. It was not designed for medical care, legal access, family visitation, or the basic dignity people are owed when they are in government custody.

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What the video captures so clearly is the contrast between Washington County’s people and Washington County’s power structure. Residents have marched, protested, filed public records requests, attended hearings, watched county meetings, tracked vehicles, and demanded answers. Meanwhile, the public was given almost no meaningful say before the federal government tried to drop a detention center beside a small town of roughly 2,000 people.

That is the story here. Not just a warehouse. Not just zoning. Not just politics. It is a test of whether a community can be treated like an afterthought while the federal government and its contractors attempt to build a detention machine in its backyard.

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One of the strongest parts of the video comes when Tony Forame breaks down what happened in federal court in Baltimore and why the project was temporarily stopped. Forame also walks viewers through the role of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which requires federal agencies to study the environmental impact of major projects before moving forward. The federal judge ultimately appeared deeply skeptical of DHS’ position, especially given that the agency was simultaneously planning large scale modifications involving fencing, water systems, toilets, offices, and detention infrastructure while insisting the impact would somehow be minimal. The video does a particularly effective job showing how absurd the government’s argument can sound when stripped of bureaucratic language and explained plainly to ordinary people.

The episode also zooms out, and that matters. Experts interviewed in the video explain that immigration detention is not simply a government function. It is an industry, with private contractors, subcontractors, food vendors, transportation companies, medical providers, and local governments all finding ways to profit from confinement. The warehouse model being pushed in Maryland is part of something larger, faster, and more dangerous.

This video is a reminder that this fight is about Williamsport. It is about Washington County residents who were told almost nothing, then expected to quietly accept everything. And it is about the people who could one day be locked inside a warehouse that was built for freight and storage, not human beings.

The video ends with a simple truth: this project was paused because ordinary people refused to roll over and accept it. The pressure worked. The scrutiny worked. The protests, the organizing, the public records requests, the court challenges, and the relentless attention worked. But DHS has made clear it still wants this detention center, which means this fight is far from over. Washington County residents now face a choice: allow this community to become nationally known for a massive ICE detention complex, or continue making this project so politically toxic, publicly scrutinized, and logistically difficult that the federal government is forced to rethink whether it can build this here at all.

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Earlier today, we published a story about a new confidentiality agreement surfacing inside Washington County government and the increasingly uncomfortable pattern emerging around secrecy, infrastructure planning, and the proposed ICE detention warehouse near Williamsport. The deeper we dig, the more it becomes clear that non-disclosure agreements were not some fringe theory or overblown accusation from activists. They were real, they were being used, and they were tied to discussions happening long before the public fully understood what was coming.

Last month, we broke the story that Washington County Commissioners signed an NDA tied to a major land deal just weeks before the Department of Homeland Security purchased the 54 acre property and the 825,000 square foot industrial warehouse, which they plan to turn into an ICE detention center.

After filing a Maryland Public Information Act request, Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible obtained a redacted non-disclosure and confidentiality agreement executed in December 2025 between the Washington County Board of County Commissioners and a private Maryland LLC connected to a “project to be located on the Company’s property.” The timing alone is difficult to ignore. The agreement was signed only weeks before DHS ultimately purchased the warehouse property that would later become the center of the proposed ICE detention facility controversy.

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For months, local officials insisted there was little to say publicly about the warehouse project while residents, journalists, and community groups were left trying to piece together what was happening through court filings, scattered meeting records, environmental notices, and public records requests. This document shows that while the public remained largely in the dark, formal confidentiality agreements were already in place behind the scenes.

What stands out most is how expansive the agreement actually is. This is not narrowly drafted language limited to a simple land transaction or preliminary business conversation. The NDA specifically defines confidential information to include discussions involving “facility network strategy,” “location strategy,” “economic development incentives,” and even the “existence and progress” of such plans. Those are not ordinary phrases people associate with a routine warehouse purchase. They sound like the kinds of discussions that happen when governments and private entities are coordinating around a major operational project with long-term regional implications. The agreement also prohibited disclosure of information to third parties without written permission while allowing information to be shared internally with consultants, subcontractors, advisors, agents, and others deemed to have a “legitimate need to know.” In practice, that meant conversations about the project could quietly circulate among insiders and outside consultants while the public remained excluded from the process entirely.

The signature page shows the agreement was signed on behalf of Washington County by then-BOCC President John Barr. That matters because Barr has repeatedly been one of the most visible county officials connected to the warehouse controversy and the broader handling of the project. It also matters because county leadership spent months publicly downplaying concerns about secrecy surrounding the warehouse while residents continued uncovering more evidence that significant discussions and planning efforts had already been underway long before the public was meaningfully informed. The existence of this NDA directly undercuts the idea that there was little or nothing happening behind closed doors.

To be clear, governments sometimes use NDAs during economic development negotiations or property transactions. On its own, an NDA is not proof of wrongdoing. But context matters, and the context here is extraordinary. This was not a proposal for a shopping center, distribution hub, or office park. This ultimately became a plan tied to a massive federally connected detention operation that Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown later argued in court could overwhelm existing sewer infrastructure, strain local systems, and carry substantial environmental and community impacts. Since then, the project has triggered lawsuits, protests, federal scrutiny, environmental concerns, and growing outrage over the lack of transparency surrounding how this all unfolded.

That is why this document is significant. It adds another piece to a timeline that increasingly suggests far more coordination and planning may have been happening privately than the public was led to believe at the time. The agreement itself never explicitly says “ICE” or “detention center,” and we are not claiming otherwise. But when an NDA discussing “facility network strategy” and “location strategy” is signed shortly before DHS acquires the exact warehouse property that later becomes the centerpiece of a detention center battle, people are naturally going to ask questions about what officials knew and when they knew it.

This is also why today’s earlier story about additional NDAs surfacing inside county government matters. Viewed individually, officials may try to characterize each agreement as routine or unrelated. Viewed together, they begin to paint a broader picture of a county government increasingly comfortable operating behind confidentiality walls while the public struggled to get basic answers about one of the largest and most controversial projects Washington County has faced in years.

The public still deserves straightforward answers about who requested these agreements, what discussions were taking place at the time, what role county officials played in facilitating the project, and whether the public was intentionally kept in the dark while key decisions and planning conversations were already moving forward. Because at this point, the issue is no longer just the warehouse itself. It is the growing sense that residents were never given the transparency they should have received from the very beginning.

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For months, people across Washington County have been asking why so many major decisions connected to the proposed ICE detention warehouse seem to happen behind closed doors. Between reports of non-disclosure agreements, private discussions, canceled meetings, sealed negotiations, and ongoing litigation, public trust around this project has steadily eroded. Now another confidentiality agreement has surfaced, this time tied directly to sewer infrastructure, utility planning, and future county development.

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Buried inside the Washington County Board of County Commissioners agenda packet for a May 21 special meeting is a consulting contract between Washington County government and GDMS, LLC, a private consulting company managed by former longtime Washington County Administrator Gregory B. Murray. Murray is not some random outside consultant being brought in from another state. Before becoming County Administrator, he also served as director of the County’s Water Quality Department, which makes his reappearance especially notable given that sewer and wastewater capacity have become some of the biggest unresolved issues surrounding the proposed ICE detention facility near Williamsport.

The contract gives GDMS broad authority to provide consulting and support services related to public utility adequacy, including sewer infrastructure, future growth projections, infrastructure readiness, regional service capacity, and identifying “critical areas of immediate need.” The agreement is written broadly enough that the work could potentially touch almost any major infrastructure issue the County wants reviewed. The consultant is also authorized to evaluate water and sewer deficiencies, analyze future growth impacts, coordinate with regional service providers, and even perform “other tasks not identified” if directed by the County.

What immediately caught our attention, however, was the confidentiality language embedded in the agreement. Under a section titled “Confidentiality,” the contract states that the consultant and its representatives may not “divulge, disclose, or communicate in any manner” any proprietary County information. The agreement further states that all such information must be treated as “strictly confidential,” and those confidentiality obligations continue even after the contract ends.

Under ordinary circumstances, that language might not stand out much. Governments use confidentiality clauses in consulting contracts all the time. But these are not ordinary circumstances. The proposed ICE warehouse has already triggered lawsuits from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, protests, environmental disputes, public records fights, and growing concerns about secrecy surrounding the project. One of the central questions in the legal battle has been whether existing infrastructure can safely support a large-scale detention facility and the significant wastewater demands it could generate. Sewer and wastewater capacity have become some of the most politically sensitive aspects of the entire controversy.

That is why this contract raises so many questions. Washington County is now quietly approving a confidential consulting arrangement focused specifically on water, sewer, and infrastructure issues while those exact same issues remain at the center of the ICE warehouse fight. The agreement also allows the consultant access to County employees and County data, permits the use of subcontractors with “specific subject matter expertise,” and states that all work produced under the contract becomes the “exclusive property” of Washington County government.

The political context surrounding Greg Murray also matters here. According to publicly available reporting summarized in the history section for Fort Ritchie, Washington County officials traveled to South Korea in connection with JGBLI and ultimately transferred roughly 63 acres connected to the redevelopment project. The process became highly controversial and generated allegations involving secrecy and possible violations of Maryland open meetings laws. Murray was County Administrator during much of that period, meaning he was part of the senior leadership structure overseeing County operations and redevelopment efforts at the time. Whether fair or not, many residents still associate that era with opaque negotiations and insider-driven development politics.

Murray also has longstanding ties to current Washington County leadership, including commissioner John Barr, after years serving in senior Washington County government roles.

That is what makes the timing of this agenda packet difficult to ignore. The same packet that approves a confidential consulting contract with Murray’s company also includes another Fort Ritchie infrastructure amendment involving JGBLI and sewer improvements. In other words, Washington County is rehiring a former top official connected to one of the County’s most controversial redevelopment disputes under a confidentiality agreement to advise on sewer and infrastructure matters while simultaneously advancing another infrastructure agreement tied to the same Fort Ritchie redevelopment history.

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It also raises another obvious question: is this contract really limited to general county utility planning and Fort Ritchie infrastructure issues, or could it also position GDMS and Greg Murray to quietly work on infrastructure problems connected to the proposed ICE warehouse itself? Publicly, County officials can describe the agreement as broad county utility consulting and Fort Ritchie-related infrastructure work. Internally, however, the same consultant could potentially advise on sewer and wastewater issues tied to the detention facility without the County ever needing to issue a separate contract explicitly labeled as an ICE warehouse infrastructure project.

That possibility becomes even more notable given Murray’s background running the County’s water department, the broad scope of the contract itself, and the fact that sewer capacity remains one of the biggest legal and political vulnerabilities facing the detention facility proposal. To be clear, there is no direct evidence in the contract explicitly stating that GDMS is being hired to work on the ICE warehouse. But the overlap in timing, subject matter, infrastructure focus, and political context is difficult to ignore.

At minimum, the document confirms that County leadership is actively engaged in confidential infrastructure planning involving water, sewer, and utility adequacy while the future of the ICE warehouse project remains under intense public scrutiny. For many residents, that is unlikely to calm concerns that major decisions are still being shaped outside public view.

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For months, residents in Washington County have been warning that DHS’s plan to convert a massive industrial warehouse near Hagerstown into an ICE detention center was reckless, rushed, and lacking transparency.

Now the federal government’s own watchdog is reportedly investigating the broader warehouse detention program itself.

According to new reporting from The Wall Street Journal, the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General has launched an audit into ICE’s acquisition of detention space, including the controversial warehouse-to-detention initiative championed by former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and adviser Corey Lewandowski. The report states that DHS rapidly purchased vacant industrial warehouses across the country, often paying above market rates while pushing to open facilities that reportedly lacked proper zoning and plumbing infrastructure.

That mirrors exactly what residents and community groups such as Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible have been warning about for months in Washington County.

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The proposed ICE facility in Williamsport is an 825,000 square foot industrial warehouse purchased by DHS for $102.4 million. Despite reportedly having only an 800 gallon-per-day water allotment, DHS pursued plans to house up to 1,500 detainees there, something that would require more than 150 times more water for drinking, toilets, showers, laundry, cooking, and sewage operations.

Meanwhile, the county sewage system is already at capacity, local infrastructure cannot support a project of this scale without major upgrades, and taxpayers could ultimately be left paying for the consequences.

Residents repeatedly raised concerns about environmental impacts, floodplain issues, infrastructure strain, and the rushed, secretive nature of the project. Instead of listening, local officials and DHS treated concerned residents like alarmists while moving the project forward behind closed doors. The Washington County Commissioners unanimously endorsed the facility earlier this year despite these unresolved concerns.

Last month, a federal judge extended a preliminary injunction blocking the conversion and operation of the detention center while litigation brought by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown moves forward. More recently, we at Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible reported that DHS emails discovered in from an MPIA request showed the agency had determined the project now requires a formal Environmental Assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act because it could result in significant environmental and community impacts requiring deeper federal review and future public engagement.

For months, we have protested every single week outside County Commissioners meetings, filed public records requests, coordinated with journalists and environmental advocates, and organized across the region to stop the project.

We intend to continue throwing sand in the gears at every opportunity until plans for this ICE detention facility are permanently canceled.

PS: Please take a second to like and follow Hagerstown Rapid Response on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and Twitter.

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On the same day hundreds of residents gathered outside the Washington County Board of County Commissioners meeting to protest the proposed ICE detention center near Hagerstown, the Commissioners quietly canceled their next scheduled public meeting.

The cancellation notice, posted to the county website on May 12, announced that the May 19, 2026 Commissioners meeting would no longer take place. No detailed explanation was provided and the timing speaks for itself.

On May 12, about 100 residents, activists, environmental advocates, and community members rallied outside the Commissioners meeting to oppose DHS’s plan to convert an 825,000 square foot industrial warehouse in Williamsport into a massive ICE detention center.

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And now, suddenly, the Commissioners don’t want to hold a public meeting next week and residents should ask themselves why. If county officials truly believe this project is safe, transparent, and supported by the public, there should be no reason to avoid facing the community after one of the largest demonstrations Washington County has seen in years.

This is is further evidence that the public pressure is working. Every protest, every public records request, every journalist asking questions, and every resident refusing to stay silent has forced this project further into the spotlight. What officials once hoped would quietly move forward behind closed doors is now facing lawsuits, environmental scrutiny, national media attention, and a reported federal watchdog investigation.

We intend to continue using every lawful tool available to delay, challenge, expose, and ultimately stop this proposed ICE detention facility until the project is permanently canceled.

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While the subject line of the email refers to the site as the “ICE Baltimore Processing Facility,” DHS officials internally describe it as the “proposed ICE detention center at 10900 Hopewell Road in Hagerstown, Maryland.”

That distinction matters because officials have repeatedly relied on terms like “processing facility” when discussing the project publicly, even as residents and advocates warned the warehouse was being developed into a large-scale detention operation.

The email also reveals that the project is still facing unresolved tribal consultation issues under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. According to DHS, one tribe requested additional information related to ground disturbance impacts, and ICE is now awaiting final design details from its contractor before continuing consultation.

At the same time, DHS says ICE has now determined the project requires a formal Environmental Assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act due to the “scope of potential impacts associated with the proposed undertaking.”

That means the federal government is acknowledging the project may carry significant environmental and community impacts requiring deeper review and future public engagement.

Taken together, the email shows the proposed Hagerstown-area ICE detention center is still far from finalized and remains under growing environmental, cultural, and public scrutiny.