How did the Elkridge ICE facility go largely unnoticed? - The Baltimore Banner

Work to retrofit an Elkridge office building as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, complete with detention cells, was nearly done when word got out about the project.

Amid the furious reaction — from residents who rallied in subfreezing weather to Howard County** **leaders who took steps to block its opening — many wondered how such a consequential project came out of nowhere.

It didn’t.

Federal contract records and hundreds of planning documents reviewed by The Banner show the planned ICE facility in a leased building at 6522 Meadowridge Road had been in the works since 2022, when Democrat Joe Biden was president. It moved through Howard’s permitting process as President Donald Trump’s Republican administration accelerated deportations.

The records offer a window into how federal immigration authorities are broadening their footprint in Maryland amid growing worries the state will face an ICE surge like that in Minneapolis this year. Other ICE projects have emerged recently in Baltimore and Washington counties. But they also raise questions about who in Howard County officialdom knew what and when about the project.

None of the building’s renderings, first submitted to the county in February 2025, mentions ICE or immigration — but they label weapons and ammunition storage, noncontact visitor booths and secured areas for detainees.

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Once ICE’s intent became clear, Howard leaders passed emergency legislation Feb. 5 banning privately owned detention facilities. Despite that prohibition, the building’s future remains unclear.

After the ban passed, ICE’s media team said the agency had no plans to open a detention center or purchase a facility in the county.

However, a Feb. 20 federal contract solicitation for meals and ready-to-eat food to support ICE operations in Salisbury and Baltimore refers to ICE’s Baltimore field office, currently located at the federal building in Hopkins Plaza, moving to the Elkridge facility in May.

Perhaps the solicitation was in the works before the ban, but it adds to the questions about the facility, which a private developer spent an estimated $12 million on to lease to the federal government.

Such projects pose a dilemma for local leaders: Make way for immigrant detention facilities in their backyards, or challenge an administration known for targeting political adversaries.

“No one wants to put a target on the back of their community from the president of the United States,” Howard County Executive Calvin Ball said.

How Howard leaders figured it out

In 2022, the U.S. General Services Administration, which owns and manages property for the federal government, put out a solicitation seeking “office and other related space” that it could lease for up to 15 years inside a circle on a crudely drawn map of the Baltimore region.

Requirements included a minimum of 27,258 square feet, 79 parking spaces and a sallyport, a secure, controlled entry with two sets of doors that can’t open at the same time. It noted that properties near residential, religious, educational or retail facilities didn’t qualify.

The GSA awarded an $18.3 million contract to Michigan-based Genesis GSA Strategic One LLC in 2023. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

Maryland property records show Genesis paid about $4 million that year to acquire a brick office building in the Meadowridge Business Park along Interstate 95 in Elkridge.

For months, the only hints of how the federal government intended to use the space appeared in attachments to the 2022 contract solicitation labeled “Baltimore ICE” and in a commercial real estate company’s market report for the second quarter of 2023, which listed the tenant as “GSA Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

That detail** **didn’t appear in permit paperwork filed with the county in 2024 by architectural and construction firms making interior changes, including demolishing walls, plumbing and lighting.

More clues surfaced after Trump was back in office. The firms submitted new drawings to the county that depict two large detainee holding rooms and three smaller ones. The documents list a drafted date in May 2024, suggesting the detention features originated under the Biden administration.

County staffers reviewed the drawings in February 2025, months earlier than a timeline that Howard County disclosed for the project, which highlighted the issuance of the building permit in August.

According to a correspondence with the developer’s engineering firm,** **zoning staff members quickly questioned the building’s purpose, which an application described as an “office building.” They directed builders to clarify the intended use. Later, a letter from an engineer disclosed the building was intended for a “processing center.”

Despite the zoning staff’s questions, Ball said, he didn’t learn about the project until January, when he was alerted by an elected official whom he declined to name. When his team dug into it, officials concluded the facility’s opening was imminent and contacted Gov. Wes Moore’s administration and Howard’s federal and state lawmakers to coordinate a response.

At the same time,** **ICE’s aggressive tactics to round up thousands of immigrants and deport them were drawing widespread protests after the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis.

“In retrospect, there might be people who say, ‘Oh, they should have known all along,’” Ball said. “Most people do not want their county executive going through every permit and making some sort of calculus of what they’re going to do.”

Ball’s administration revoked the ICE facility’s building permit on the grounds that it met the state’s definition for an immigrant detention center and thus needed notices and public hearings.

He also called for** **emergency legislation to ban privately owned detention centers in the county, emphasizing its proximity to neighborhoods and schools along with risks to the community’s “health, safety and welfare.”

Once he had learned what was unfolding, Ball said, “things moved very quickly.”

What’s inside the Elkridge facility

Much of the building at the back of the small business park is obscured from view, but renderings filed with Howard County show what’s** **inside.

More than half of the facility is being built out as office space, with rooms labeled for the field director, deputies and other supervisors. The plans show conference, training and break rooms, along with lockers and a fitness center.

A smaller section near the sallyport shows five detainee holding rooms, showers and property storage. The drawings appear to show toilets and sinks but not beds.

Occupancy tallies included in the drawings suggest the detainee processing and holding rooms could handle no more than 49 people — significantly fewer than the proposed facility near Hagerstown, which is designed to hold up to 1,500.

“Any reasonable person would have concerns about this, even at that scale,” Ball said.

Maryland elected officials have raised questions about overcrowding in the Baltimore ICE field office. A viral video posted online in January shows dozens of detainees packed into one of the holding rooms.

After last week’s contract solicitation, ICE representatives did not respond to questions about how or whether the agency will open the Howard County building.

A representative of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, declined to confirm office locations, citing safety concerns for officers. They noted the department announced in January that it had more than doubled its officers and agents and it needs space.

The Elkridge building has not received an occupancy permit or cleared some required inspections. And no new applications have been filed to replace the revoked building permit, county spokesperson Safa Hira said in an email.

Hira said the county is not aware of any ICE plans to move the Baltimore field office to Elkridge.

ICE could circumvent** the private detention center ban by purchasing the building, but **Maryland property records show the building is still privately owned.

Learning that Elkridge factors into the agency’s infrastructure expansion worries Tina Horn, an advocate for the immigrant support group Luminus who helped spread the word about the project.

“I think we’ve got our finger in a dike,” Horn said. “We’ll see how long that holds. I don’t think that this is finished.”