Health care firm: Job postings for proposed ICE warehouse in Merrimack, N.H., are 'speculative'

The head of a health care company that’s advertising jobs for nurses and other medical staff to work inside a proposed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Merrimack, N.H., said his business hasn’t decided whether to provide staffing for this or any other ICE facility.

Ethan Bond, president of Aspen Medical USA, said his company posted “speculative” job listings online to test the labor market in New Hampshire and other markets where the US Department of Homeland Security is expected to have health care staffing needs.

Aspen Medical USA — which is based in Washington, affiliated with an Australian company, and known for delivering medical services in war-torn countries and other challenging environments — is among the vendors approved to participate in a multi-award contract that the Trump administration is using to pump billions of dollars into its mass deportations agenda.

An existing vehicle known as the Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract, or WEXMAC, which the federal government had been using to quickly procure support services for US military personnel around the globe, was modified in 2025 to include the United States itself as a region for vendors to provide services.

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Aspen Medical USA was among the businesses that secured eligibility as vendor under the contract. But the company hasn’t placed bids on any DHS task orders, and might never do so, Bond said.

Bond said in an email Thursday that his company regularly conducts “viability exercises” to “map market conditions” in relation to the government’s expected staffing needs. That’s what led to the “speculative” job postings based on DHS’s plans in New Hampshire and other markets, he said.

The question of whether to actually partner with DHS and provide health care staffing services for ICE’s sprawling new network of detention facilities is “a very touchy subject” that’s spurring serious conversations among business leaders, Bond said.

On the one hand, a company like Aspen Medical wants to ensure that vulnerable people receive great care, he said. On the other hand, there’s a risk of being perceived as enabling an unpopular program with a less-than-ideal history.

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“It’s the choice between trying to do good in a flawed system or boycott the system and risk that the only people who suffer as a result are the vulnerable that you could have helped,” he said.

The plan to convert an industrial warehouse in southern New Hampshire into a regional ICE detainee processing center with 400 to 600 beds has sparked intense opposition from local, state, and federal leaders who object both to the plan itself, and the federal government’s refusal to communicate openly about its intentions.

Even after the Globe published a story on Wednesday linking Aspen Medical’s job listings to the proposed ICE warehouse in Merrimack, an unnamed DHS spokesperson released a statement that didn’t answer any questions about the facility.

“We have no new detention centers to announce at this time,” the statement said. “These will be very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”

The situation has repeatedly placed Governor Kelly Ayotte in an uncomfortable position. Ayotte, a Republican, has largely expressed approval of efforts to increase immigration enforcement activity. She signed legislation banning “sanctuary” policies and encouraged state and local police to sign agreements to help make arrests on ICE’s behalf. But a series of communication breakdowns, with the federal government and also within her own administration, have fueled questions and growing calls for her to actively oppose the ICE facility.

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, a Democrat, called on Ayotte last week to do “everything in her power” to block ICE’s warehouse on behalf of the entire region. Ayotte replied by blaming Healey and others in Massachusetts for creating “a billion-dollar illegal immigrant crisis” in New England.

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This is the tense political environment in which vendors are weighing which government contracts to seek and which to avoid.

Bond said any applications that Aspen Medical collected in response to speculative job listings are placed in an applicant pool. They won’t be reviewed by a human unless the company decides to pursue a contract in the relevant market, he said.

“While I don’t want to deal in absolutes,” he added, “it is not looking likely that we will ever bid on any of these facilities.”

Steven Porter can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @reporterporter.