The public is killing Trump's detention warehouse plan
ALSO INSIDE: Lutnick’s trip to Epstein’s island opens Trump cabinet to potential consequences
Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.
Catch me at this year’s State of the Swamp, held at the National Press Club on February 24th. As part of the rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union, I’ll speak on the dangers his attacks against the Fourth Estate poses on the future of democracy.
Joining me onstage will be Robert DeNiro, Jim Acosta, Mehdi Hasan, US Sen. Ron Wyden. And a host of other current and former elected officials, celebrities, and community leaders.
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Local opposition kills seven warehouse deals
Overwhelming backlash over Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to convert industrial warehouses into massive detention camps has killed plans for at least seven locations so far, even as the Trump administration expedited its plans to open internment camps on military bases.
ICE originally set its sights on 23 warehouses across the US for potential use as detention sites, with the goal of more than doubling its current detainment capacity of 70,000. Those plans were almost immediately thwarted, however, as opposition from community members, elected officials, and even warehouse owners effectively barred ICE from seven of those locations.
DHS moved forward with its plans anyway, and secured warehouses in nine other locations — in almost every instance, against the wishes of the local communities. In some of these cities, such as Surprise, Arizona, and Socorro, Texas, local leaders are now exploring ways to prevent ICE from using the purchased warehouses as detention centers, citing various permitting regulations and public nuisance laws.
“Socorro held a city council meeting to discuss their next steps and their options. They were not informed, by the way, that this is what DHS would be doing. They learned about this through the media, and I alerted the mayor about what was going on,” said US Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX). “Cities that have ordinance-making authority, they have more power than a lot of folks understand. And I think in moments like this, they need to utilize all of their power.”
Below is a brief update on the Trump administration’s use of warehouses since the initial Feb. 3 reporting:
Two more locations stalled by local efforts
Merrillville, Indiana
Democratic US Rep. Frank Mrvan wrote DHS a letter in opposition, the town council voted unanimously against the facility, and the warehouse owners stated they had no plans to sell to any federal agency.
Byhalia, Mississippi
Due to community backlash, and opposition from US Sen. Roger Wicker, ICE has abandoned plans to develop a detention camp in Mississippi.
Three sites pending, purchased, or already in use
Hall and Walton Counties, Georgia
Despite fierce community opposition, ICE purchased a facility in Social Circle in early February. If it follows through with its initial proposal to hold 8,500 people there, the detained population would exceed that of the small town itself.
Hall County officials also confirmed that DHS’ purchase of a smaller warehouse just north of Social Circle would be finalized by the end of February.
Chester, New York
Despite vocal opposition from residents, ICE appears to be moving full steam ahead with its plans to set up camp in Chester — and, in fact, has already secured access to a warehouse owned by billionaire Carl Icahn. Icahn’s relationship with Trump goes way back, as first reported by The Oracle’s Felix Hoffman, and appears to have charted the course Elon Musk later trekked.
Icahn was a mega donor during Trump’s 2016 campaign who funneled at least $150 million to him through a Super PAC. He was later considered for US Treasury Secretary, but ultimately settled on being a special advisor, where he gained a reputation for ransacking the federal government to increase his personal wealth.
A map of all 23 proposed warehouse detention camps is available here and will be updated weekly on Fridays.
Renewed opposition at two already-purchased warehouses
Surprise, Arizona
Residents were taken by — well, surprise — at ICE’s plan to use an industrial warehouse down the street from a high school as a detention camp. According to the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez, more than 1,000 people attended a recent city council meeting in protest, where council members admitted they had not been consulted prior to the purchase.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced plans to file a public nuisance lawsuit aimed at blocking the facility’s operation. Public nuisance laws are a unique and effective tool allowing state officials to impose checks on activities deemed harmful to public health or safety. Mayes has previously utilized them to stop out-of-state and foreign farms from siphoning away millions of gallons of the state’s groundwater reserves.
“As Arizona’s top law enforcement officer, I have authority to compel the abatement of activities considered a public nuisance due to being ‘injurious to health, indecent, offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property that interferes with the enjoyment of life,’” Mayes wrote in a letter to Noem. “I note with approval your statement on the DHS website, that ‘through technical support, training, and oversight, DHS limits liability by ensuring continuous compliance with federal, state, and local laws.’”
Socorro, Texas
After DHS purchased warehouses and over 60 acres of land in Socorro for $123 million, the city council voted to use whatever authority they have to impede the use of the site as a detention facility. While the state gives broad authority to the federal government, Socorro officials say they plan to wield safety, permitting, and zoning laws as weapons to stall ICE at every turn.
Plans to expand military detention sites
The Trump administration appears to now be moving forward with a detention plan that circumvents the combination of public input and local regulations that have hampered its warehouse scheme. As first reported by Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manríquez, the Department of Defense put out an eight-year, $55 billion contract to build permanent detention infrastructure on newly-designated militarized zones.
While the contract is broadly framed as providing logistical support for the US Navy, the contractor is required to provide beds, tents, catering, and detention guards at the request of DHS. It also specifies that its intention is to protect the government’s territorial integrity, and prohibits the housing of “any non-ICE population at the facility.” It would also allow ICE to bypass any bidding processes, public input, and local regulations that have slowed the administration’s mass incarceration plans thus far.
The arrangement echoes past uses of military bases for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, when the government abducted civilians based on their ethnicity and detained them for an undetermined amount of time. The conditions, however, more closely mirror Nazi concentration camps, as those currently held in ICE custody are stripped of their rights, beaten, sexually assaulted, and either left to die or are outright killed by prison guards.
“People are not goods to be stored,” said Escobar. “I was afraid this was going to happen. When the ICE director said he wanted ICE deportations to be like Amazon Prime. That we have a government — that the United States of America is talking about human beings this way — processing and holding, detaining and deporting — it should offend everyone’s sense of humanity.”
While the $55 billion contract is new, attempts to militarize incarceration is something Trump has been trying to do since he regained the presidency. Bases in Indiana and New Jersey were approved last year as potential DHS detention sites, though neither site is being used to hold people as of yet. The only known base to currently act as a detention center is Fort Bliss in Texas, where physical abuse and sexual assault runs rampant.
The Trump administration made a similar plan to erect a military prison camp at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California. But where it succeeded in Texas, it failed in California. The Travis facility was stopped in its tracks last year by community opposition, spearheaded by US Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.).
“They wanted to build a major detention facility on the base that is already overcrowded — and I said, ‘hell no! You’re not going to do that. We’re not going to allow you to further degrade the ability of the military to do its national security job,’” said Garamendi. “We did stop them there, and that fight hopefully is over.”
True to form, the Trump administration had attempted to develop Travis into a detention center without alerting the public. That all fell apart when Garamendi got wind of the proposal and immediately alerted both the public and the press. The revelation set off weeks of protests and demands from local residents that ultimately forced the administration to abandon its plans.
Garamendi has since taken efforts to deter ICE even further, and in February, introduced legislation to freeze funding for the agency altogether. The measure would provide a long-term solution to a problem that could result in another partial shutdown of the government, as Republicans in Congress not only refuse to cut funding for ICE, but wish to increase its budget.
“It should be obvious to all Americans that ICE is a major problem, and there are many different ways we can deal with it. One way is to ice. ICE. Don’t let it grow any longer,” Garamendi said. “The secretary [Noem], together with the ICE management, is surging thousands of paramilitary troops into our cities and creating enormous chaos and death, and just totally ignoring the constitutional requirements of notice, of people’s right to a lawyer, breaking into houses without a judicial warrant. The fact of the matter is that ICE is out of control.”
While the bill doesn’t address the Trump administration’s use of the military budget for its anti-immigration efforts, it would render those endeavors moot, as ICE would be prohibited from increasing its capacity to hire agents and abduct civilians.
Join COURIER and 3.14 Action on March 12 for MAHA & the Midterms: How Trump and RFK Jr.’s Agenda Costs Americans.
This live conversation will examine how political choices are reshaping healthcare access ahead of the midterms. We’ll break down how Trump, RFK Jr., and the broader MAHA agenda are impacting public health, who benefits, and what’s at stake for families across the country.
Featured Speakers include Dr. Mary Trump, Hank Green, and US Rep. Lauren Underwood.
Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.
It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.
What Happened
Consequences for people named in the Epstein Files have finally boomeranged back from Europe, and are headed straight for the Trump administration.
Shortly after the Department of Justice’s investigative materials related to Jeffrey Epstein became public, officials in the highest levels of government in the UK, France, Norway, Slovakia, and Sweden have faced criminal inquiries and resignations. Yet in the United States, where the investigation actually took place, there has been comparatively little fallout, despite the sitting president being one of its main characters.
Part of the reason could be the way the files were released — a small batch came out a few months ago, followed weeks later by an additional 3 million difficult-to-access documents. It’s akin to the administration’s “flood the zone” strategy, where they attempt to overwhelm the public with information about a ton of different things so that there’s no collective will to get anything done.
At first, it looked like that strategy might work. The government closed its investigation after concluding that Epstein’s multi-billion-dollar, international sex trafficking operation with thousands of victims only involved two people. Meanwhile, independent researchers and regular people kept finding so much evidence to the contrary that there have been about 20 different short-lived public flare-ups, but nothing with the longevity needed to trigger actual consequences.
And then someone found this — a legal document establishing a paper trail from Epstein to Howard Lutnick, a member of Trump’s Cabinet. This is different from the thousands of seemingly incriminating email threads and anonymous accusations in the Epstein Files because instead of needing to piece together assumptions, this document provides a concrete financial connection between Lutnick and Epstein.
That, coupled with the message threads between the two, where they made plans to go to Epstein’s island, get drinks, and in general spent years in close company, creates a credible narrative that these two were involved in a number of ventures together. A narrative that could be proven in court, if the government chose to investigate.
As a result, a growing number of members of Congress — Democrats and Republicans — are calling on Lutnick to resign as Trump’s Commerce Secretary and to face investigation for his ties to Epstein. It may not seem like much, but unlike in the UK and Norway, where politicians resign out of humiliation, conservative US politicians have been trained since the Reagan era to never apologize, never admit fault, and never express shame.
In such a political environment, accountability rarely emerges voluntarily. It must be sustained and, in many cases, forced. As long as calls for Lutnick’s resignation and investigation don’t die down — from both elected officials and the public — meaningful consequences are still possible.
And once a smaller Cabinet member is held accountable, it opens the door for those in a higher position of power to be held to the same standard, including US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is engaging in an apparent cover-up of what’s in the Epstein Files, or even the president himself.
I’m looking for more paper trail documents — if you find any, please send them to me at camaron@couriernewsroom.com.
The search terms I’m using include the names of the banks that have settled out of court with the victims and are believed to have ignored illegal transaction activity: Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, and JPMorgan.
There are regulatory checks financial institutions perform when there is suspected money laundering, fraud, or illegal activity: Suspicious Activity Reports (SARS) and Know Your Customer (KYC). Searching either acronym will bring up financial records that could connect Epstein to any accomplices, clients, or co-conspirators.
Attempts to Sanewash
Far-Right Spin
Trump Defends Howard Lutnick’s Visit to Epstein Island - “I Wasn’t Aware of it... I Was Never There”
US commerce chief Howard Lutnick admits Epstein Island lunch but denies closer ties
It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.
US Rep. Ken Calvert, California’s 41st Congressional District
Since taking office in 1993, Rep. Calvert has:
Seen his net worth increase from $3 million to nearly $23 million
Sponsored 280 bills, 12 of which have been signed into law
Received more money from the defense industry during the 2022 midterms than almost any other congressional candidate
Staffed his congressional office with dozens of former lobbyists, including representatives for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and the National Potato Council
Received a $265,000 campaign boost from Elon Musk during the 2024 election
Used his position to allegedly score very beneficial land deals for himself and his realtor friends
Promised to only serve six terms… this is now his 16th
Fun Facts
Throughout his three decades in Congress, Rep. Calvert has made it a priority to bring his real estate expertise to Washington, particularly when it scores him a nice payoff.
He’s shown an acute ability to use earmarks — guarantees in the federal budget that certain amounts of money can only be used for specific projects — to make previously worthless land spike in value. Maps of earmarked transportation projects he’s signed off on are often lined with properties tied to himself. In 2007, such deals were found to violate state laws, and in 2009, he became the subject of an FBI investigation.As recently as 2024, Calvert sparked outcry after securing millions in federal funds to improve the areas around 10 rental properties he owns in Riverside.
But it hasn’t all been business: during his first term, Calvert was caught in what he described as “an extremely embarrassing situation” with someone police described as a “known prostitute.” The incident happened during Calvert’s prime mid-life crisis years, shortly after his wife left him, and resulted in neither criminal nor political consequences.
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