WIRED -- ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here's Where It's Going Next
"FEDERAL RECORDS OBTAINED by WIRED show that over the past several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have carried out a secret campaign to expand ICE’s physical presence across the US. Documents show that more than 150 leases and office expansions have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas. In many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations.
In El Paso, Texas, for example, the agency is moving into a large campus of buildings right off of Interstate 10 near multiple local health providers and other businesses. In Irvine, California, ICE is moving into offices located next to a childcare agency. In New York, ICE is moving into offices on Long Island near a passport center. In a wealthy community near Houston, Texas, ICE appears poised to move into an office building blocks away from a preschool.
The General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal buildings and functions as the government’s internal IT department, is playing a critical role in this aggressive expansion. In numerous emails and memorandums viewed by WIRED, DHS asked GSA explicitly to disregard usual government lease procurement procedures and even hide lease listings due to “national security concerns” in an effort to support ICE’s immigration enforcement activities across the US...
DHS, ICE’s parent agency, did not reply to requests for comment...
In documents viewed by WIRED, ICE has repeatedly outlined its expansion to cities around the US. The September memorandum citing “unusual and compelling urgency” for office expansion states that OPLA will be “expanding its legal operations” into Birmingham, Alabama; Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, and Tampa, Florida; Des Moines, Iowa; Boise, Idaho; Louisville, Kentucky; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Grand Rapids, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Raleigh, North Carolina; Long Island, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Richmond, Virginia; Spokane, Washington and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The memorandum also states that the existing offices are at maximum capacity and will “require additional space” to accommodate the new employees hired. At the time, the memo states that OPLA had selected almost 1,000 attorneys to hire...."
https://www.wired.com/story/ice-expansion-across-us-at-heres-where-its-going-next/
Related posts...
https://www.democraticunderground.com/11685970
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ice-expansion-has-outpaced-accountability-what-are-the-remedies/
Three more years of this 
means millions more at protests. 
= new reply since forum marked as read
