DHS moves forward with Surprise ICE facility, awards $313M contract to private company

The Trump administration has quietly purchased a 418,000-square-foot warehouse in Surprise, Arizona and awarded a $313-$704 million contract to a private company, GardaWorld Federal Services, to renovate the facility into an immigrant processing and detention center that could hold up to 1,500 people. The move has drawn significant backlash from local community members and elected officials, including U.S. senators, Congress members, and the Arizona Attorney General, who have sent letters to the Department of Homeland Security expressing "serious concerns" and demanding answers about the planned facility. Similar opposition has been voiced over the planned conversion of a shuttered state prison in Marana, Arizona into an ICE detention center. Critics have cited concerns over the private prison company MTC's controversial track record, including staffing shortages, medical neglect, and poor facility conditions at its existing ICE detention centers. The Surprise and Marana facilities are the latest additions to the growing list of properties the federal government intends to convert into immigration prisons and processing centers across Arizona, which already has five such detention facilities.