ICE’s New $313 Million ‘Warehouse Prison’ in Arizona Is a Human Rights Disaster Waiting to Happen

In a grotesque escalation of its immigration enforcement tactics, ICE is purchasing giant warehouses across the country to detain immigrants in facilities never meant for human habitation. The most alarming example is unfolding in Surprise, Arizona, where ICE awarded a $313 million contract to GardaWorld Federal—the private contractor behind Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz”—to convert a 400,000 square foot industrial warehouse into a detention center capable of holding up to 1,500 people. The facility is expected to open by September 2026.

This is not just a bureaucratic expansion; it’s a flagrant assault on human dignity. The Trump administration’s aggressive deportation agenda, combined with Congress’s recent approval of a massive Department of Homeland Security budget, has emboldened ICE to double down on inhumane detention practices. Warehouses designed for storage, not people, are being retrofitted into prisons with little regard for the basic standards of humane treatment.

The United States already has a horrific track record of endangering immigrant lives in custody. From overcrowded tent camps on military bases to infamous detention centers nationwide, ICE facilities have been plagued by rampant disease, medical neglect, physical abuse, and deaths. Last year alone, at least 32 people died in ICE custody. Alarmingly, 2026 is on pace to be even deadlier, with 14 deaths reported in just the first months of the year.

Given this grim history, the idea that a converted warehouse in Surprise will somehow offer safe, humane conditions strains credulity. Human Rights Watch and other advocates rightly warn that local governments must step up to block these conversions unless ICE can provide ironclad guarantees that basic human rights will be respected—guarantees the agency has repeatedly failed to honor.

The Surprise City Council and communities nationwide face a stark choice: enable ICE’s expansion of a brutal, for-profit detention system or stand up for the human rights of immigrants. We cannot allow ICE to turn giant warehouses into death traps under the guise of immigration enforcement. This is yet another disturbing surprise from an agency that has long proven it cannot be trusted to protect the people in its custody.