WASHINGTON COUNTY, Md. — In this bright-red pocket of an otherwise deep-blue state, many of President Donald Trump’s positions are popular with residents, particularly his pledge to shut down borders and deport people who are in the country illegally.
Matthew Young, a 34-year-old truck driver who lives in the county, agreed wholeheartedly with the president on the issue. “He never made it a secret that he was going to have the biggest deportation in American history, from day one,” Young said.
But in December, county residents learned that the Department of Homeland Security planned to convert an enormous empty warehouse in Williamsport into a detention center that would house as many as 1,500 people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Though the president still had his supporters, the news didn’t land well with everyone. Some residents were hostile to an ICE facility opening, and others worried their county would become another hot spot in the rancorous nationwide debate over how immigration should be enforced.
With the facility now expected to begin operating next month, according to a person briefed on the plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal agency matters, still more residents are frustrated by what they say has been a lack of public input over the decision.
“It happened without the community having a voice, and that’s very crucial and very important, especially in small towns,” said Paula Jackson, a county resident and business owner.
Amid an uproar over aggressive ICE tactics that have led to violent confrontations in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, residents and local officials in various states have fought to block the Trump administration from expanding the agency’s system for detention.
In Georgia, residents in the Republican stronghold of Social Circle pushed back against plans to open a facility there earlier this year. In New Hampshire, plans to open an ICE facility were abandoned after Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte intervened with federal officials. In Maryland, Montgomery County and Baltimore County recently passed legislation that seeks to prevent ICE from opening detention centers in their communities, while Howard County revoked a building permit for a planned detention facility and Prince George’s County has temporarily barred any properties in the county from being used for a detention center.
DHS purchased the Williamsport warehouse in mid-January. Built in 2022, the 830,00‑square‑foot building on 53 acres in an industrial park will be retrofitted “to provide short‑term housing for individuals in immigration custody awaiting immigration processing and related administrative procedures,” according to a recent DHS notice.
The facility would be encircled by 6,700 linear feet of perimeter fencing. Among the changes proposed for the existing structure are a security checkpoint, exterior recreation courts, exterior lighting and security cameras.
“I have never met one person who wants it here,” said Robin Gillenwater, 58, owner of the Veiled Lady Boutique in Williamsport, a tidy historic town along the Potomac with a bustling main street that has in recent years become popular with tourists and cyclists along the C&O Canal. “Even if they support the immigrants being removed, they still don’t want the warehouse here.”
Gillenwater, whose store sits about two miles from the proposed detention center, is a lifelong resident of Washington County and laments that warehouses now stand on what used to be farmland and rolling pastures. She said she also worries about how detainees will be treated at the facility and objects to how ICE has removed immigrants who don’t have criminal records and who were leading productive lives.
“We shouldn’t say none of these people can be here, because then none of us should be here,” Gillenwater said. “We were all immigrants at one point, and if you disagree with that, then you need to take history over again.”
Anger at the proposed detainment facility was evident at the Feb. 10 meeting of the Washington County Board of Commissioners in Hagerstown, where the members, all Republicans, unanimously passed a resolution expressing support for DHS and ICE.
The board’s statement, which didn’t mention the facility specifically, was largely symbolic. The county says it has no say over how the warehouse is used because it is owned by the federal government.
As the board president, John Barr, attempted to read the resolution aloud, he was met with a chorus of coughs and whistles from protesters inside the meeting room and angry chants from outside the room, where a large overflow crowd had gathered. Barr stopped reading and took off his glasses. “If I hear one more whistle blow, I will suspend this meeting,” he said.
Later, as the commissioners filed out following their vote, they were serenaded by protesters yelling, “Cowards!” and “Shame!”
Barr and the other county commissioners did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article.
Maryland Del. Matthew J. Schindler, the only Democrat representing Washington County in Annapolis, said he thinks residents in the county are pretty evenly split about the detention center. But he said he has been surprised at how vehement and vocal opponents have been.
“That type of opposition voice, you don’t normally hear it come out as loud,” Schindler said. “People are outraged and worried about the gravity of the situation. And I think there’s a large part of the county, myself included, that don’t want to see our town and our county known for this.”
Republican state representatives for Washington County did not respond to interview requests.
Last week, the state of Maryland sued DHS and ICE over the Williamsport facility, saying the Trump administration did not conduct an environmental review or seek public input on the project or provide a reasoned explanation on their decision-making, as required by law.
“Federal law gives Marylanders the right to know when and how detention facilities are built in their communities,” Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (D) said in a video statement on Feb. 23. “That right was denied. Today, our office is taking them to court.”
The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court of Maryland, comes as the federal government has planned to renovate warehouses across the country into detention centers, part of an effort to deal with overcrowding inside local holding facilities that has happened amid the ramped-up arrests.
Last month, ICE detailed plans to acquire and renovate eight large-scale detention centers and 16 processing sites around the country, and to acquire 10 facilities where ICE already operates. The $38.3 billion plan would increase “bed capacity” at the detention centers to 92,600 beds by the end of fiscal year 2026. DHS currently detains about 70,000 people per day, though the budgeted detention bed capacity is 50,000.
A new congressional bill aims to try to stop DHS from opening the sites without the consent of state and local officials.
DHS pushed back against those efforts, saying in a statement on Feb. 23 that the Maryland lawsuit “isn’t about the environment. It’s about trying to stop President Trump from making America safe again.”
“These will not be warehouses — they will be very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards,” the agency said in its statement. “Every day, DHS is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe. It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”
In another statement on Monday, an ICE spokesperson suggested that the detention facility would be an economic boon.
Construction and operation of the site is “expected to bring 1,125 jobs to the area and would contribute $120.6 million in GDP,” the statement said. “It’s also projected to bring in about $28.8 million in tax revenue.”
“These economic benefits don’t even take into account that removing criminals from the streets makes communities safer for business owners and customers,” the agency said.
Tony Pennesi, 45, counts himself among Washington County residents who favor using the warehouse as a detention center.
“I support the rule of law and if you’re not from this country and you commit crimes then you don’t deserve the opportunity to stay in this country. I honestly don’t know what is so radical about this point of view,” Pennesi said in a text message. “I support ICE and have no problems with them using an unused warehouse to hold and process illegal criminals to remove them from our streets!”
The debate over the planned use for the warehouse comes as immigrants and their advocates are preparing for a new surge of ICE enforcement in Maryland, with reports of agency SUVs parked outside various locations, including the warehouse in Williamsport, circulating on social media in recent weeks.
“Marylanders have made clear that we do not want more ICE in our streets, detention facilities in our neighborhoods or fear in our communities,” Ama Frimpong, legal director for We Are Casa, an immigrant advocacy organization, said in a statement.
Last month, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed emergency legislation that bans local law enforcement agencies from formally facilitating federal immigration arrests. The law forced nine sheriff’s offices in the state to immediately sever 287(g) agreements with ICE. The federal government uses the agreements to help ICE agents take into custody people they allege are in the country illegally.
Just before signing the bill, Moore called ICE an “unaccountable agency with seemingly unlimited resources.”
Kris Jones, a resident of Williamsport for 40 years, lives less than two miles from the proposed detention center. She remembers dropping off her son at a day care center near the site that has since relocated.
As warehouses across the country are converted into ICE deportation facilities, she is still trying to figure out how her community has come to host one and worries about the political upheaval that could come with it.
“We don’t understand why it’s coming to our town, why we got picked,” Jones said, in between waiting on tables as a server inside a pizza restaurant. “We’re such a little po-dunk.”
Douglas MacMillan contributed to this report.
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