Homeland Security pauses Arizona ICE facility for environmental review

PHOENIX (CN) — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will not convert a massive warehouse in Arizona into an ICE detention facility until it completes an environmental assessment or final environmental impact statement.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Wednesday that the parties reached a joint stipulation in which the department agreed not to begin construction until it fulfills its responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act and Administrative Procedure Act.

“This agreement is a significant win for the people of Surprise and for the rule of law,” Mayes said in a press release. “Federal agencies must complete the environmental review process required by federal law before moving forward with these types of projects. My office will keep fighting to ensure the law is followed.”

The facility in question, a 418,000-square-foot warehouse in Surprise, Arizona, sits across the street from a hazardous chemical plant and just two miles from two public schools. Mayes said in an April lawsuit that retrofitting the warehouse into a detention center designed to hold up to 1,500 people would create the potential for a “mass casualty event” in the case of a chemical fire or spill.

In addition to environmental laws, Mayes says the department’s plans violate the Immigration and Nationality Act, which requires “appropriate facilities” to house detainees. Finally, she says the federal government failed to conduct proper consultation.

It purchased the warehouse for $70 million in January and announced its plans without any notification to the city or the state. Mayes sent a letter to then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanding answers in February but received no response.

Now, the parties agree in a stipulation filed Tuesday that the department must wait 21 days from the time it issues an environmental assessment or final environmental impact statement to begin converting the warehouse, including construction, demolition and retrofitting.

Litigation pending the environmental review is stayed, but the department can still take tertiary steps like planning, testing, utility coordination, permitting or approval work. It can begin other physical activities not undertaken to convert the warehouse, like repair, maintenance and installation of fencing, security cameras and lights.

The department will be required to publish a final environmental impact statement only if the initial environmental assessment finds significant impact to humans or the environment. Mayes can challenge the adequacy of those findings at any time.

The department will provide 60-day status updates until the review is complete.

At least 48 people have died in ICE custody since Trump returned to office. In Arizona, a Haitian asylum-seeker died of a severe tooth infection on March 2 after staff at the Florence detention center ignored cries for help for weeks. In 2025, cancer patient and green card holder Arbella Rodriguez Marquez was denied proper medical care for months at a detention center in Eloy, Arizona.

Mayes said Homeland Security’s own inspector general has repeatedly detailed patterns of abuse in facilities across the country.

On April 9, Arizona U.S. Representatives Adelita Grijalva, Greg Stanton and Yassamin Ansari visited a detention center in Mesa, detailing “shocking conditions,” including “detainees forced to march in the desert heat for hours until people fainted,” and said it was all for “the price of the American dream.”

This is the 41st lawsuit Mayes has filed or joined against the Trump administration in his second term.

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