Arizona City Plans ICE Detention Site Across From Hazardous Chemical Warehouse

City Council Faces Backlash Over Detention Plans

Surprise, Arizona city leaders held a special meeting Tuesday night to address mounting protests over plans to convert a local warehouse into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility. What they heard was a community demanding answers about safety, accountability, and whether their elected officials would take a stand.

The Surprise City Council opened the floor to public comment after meeting behind closed doors. Dozens of residents signed up to speak, many expressing frustration that weeks after the facility was announced, the city still has no written agreements with the Department of Homeland Security about how ICE will operate in their community.

Mayor Kevin Sartor and five other council members recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with DHS officials. They returned with what they called a "better understanding" of the timeline and verbal assurances that the facility would open this fall with a "minimal footprint" as a short-term processing site.

But residents are not satisfied with verbal promises from an agency that purchased the warehouse without notifying the city in the first place.

No Written Protections for Schools and Community Spaces

Councilman Johnny Melton said DHS officials told him in Washington that ICE agents would not operate in schools. He is now demanding a written, legally binding agreement.

"I can't have ICE agents in the community center. I can't have them in the schools. I can't have them walking around our community," Melton said during the meeting.

The city claims U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar is working with ICE to draft such an agreement. But as of Tuesday night, nothing had been put in writing. Some council members expressed skepticism about the entire process, noting that at the time of the meeting, no one had even been named to replace Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security. Markwayne Mullin was sworn in as DHS head on March 24.

Residents pointed to Phoenix's policy restricting ICE from staging on city property without city manager approval as a model. They want Surprise to take a similar public stand.

"Mayor Sartor went to Washington to get answers from DHS, and he came back with promises," said Brent Peak with Northwest Valley Indivisible. "We want a resolution. We want the mayor to stand with the residents of Surprise in formal opposition to this facility."

Chemical Warehouse Raises Catastrophic Safety Concerns

A new dimension of the controversy emerged as activists uncovered public records showing the planned detention site sits directly across the street from a Rinchem hazardous chemical storage facility.

According to filings with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA, the warehouse stores chlorine, hydrofluoric acid, and fluorine at levels that trigger federal risk planning requirements. Those filings were updated just weeks before DHS purchased the detention site.

"If they have one leak of anything from that facility, it could trigger an evacuation of up to a minimum of half a mile to a mile, up to whole neighborhoods around there," Peak said.

Chemical safety experts say in a worst-case scenario, substances like hydrofluoric acid can travel thousands of feet, causing severe respiratory damage and chemical burns. Unlike residents of surrounding neighborhoods who could evacuate on their own, detainees in ICE custody would be locked inside the facility, entirely dependent on coordination between DHS, its contractor GardaWorld, and local emergency officials.

No one has explained whether any agency has reassessed the risk of housing detainees feet away from these chemicals. No one has outlined an emergency evacuation plan. And no one has clarified who would be responsible if something goes wrong.

"We're talking about an agency that did not notify the city of Surprise before purchasing this warehouse," Peak said.

Students and Residents Demand Action

Among those who spoke Tuesday night was Cali Overs, senior class president at Dysart High School. She told the council she had spoken with Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes before the meeting to ask for more state support.

The message from residents was clear: verbal assurances are not enough. Promises of reimbursements and operational limits mean nothing without formal agreements. And a city government that claims it was blindsided by DHS now has a responsibility to protect its community.

The city says it has gained clarity. But as residents noted, nothing has been put in writing. The facility is still expected to open this fall. And across the street, a warehouse full of hazardous chemicals sits waiting for someone to ask the obvious question: What happens if there is a leak?