Daniel Rickman (2:21)

Foreign.

Mary Louise Kelly (2:26)

Mary Louise Kelly

Dr. Kathleen Jordan (2:31)

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Local Residents (2:43)

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Mary Louise Kelly (2:46)

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Mary Louise Kelly (3:11)

It's Consider this from npr. President Trump's approval rating on immigration has steadily declined as voters have watched his mass deportation agenda and the backlash to it play out in America's streets. A recent Pew poll found that large scale detention of immigrants is especially unpopular. So what happens when an ICE detention center is planned to pop up in your backyard? NPR's Jasmine Garst has been looking into that, along with Kate Dorio with New Hampshire Public Radio. Welcome to you both.

Jasmine Garst (3:44)

Hi.

Kate Dario (3:45)

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Mary Louise Kelly (3:46)

Jasmine, first to you. You have been spending time in a few towns where these warehouses are being turned into detention centers. Take us there. Tell us what it looks.

Jasmine Garst (3:57)

Yeah. So one town I spent time in is Roxbury, New Jersey. Roxbury is a conservative town on the edge of Lake Musconnect Cong. And it's, it's very picturesque and overlooking the town on a sort of cliff over the lake, there's this massive warehouse which ISIS purchased to turn into a detention center with nearly 500,000 square feet. So I drove up there for myself and I ended up talking to neighbors. I spoke to one young MAN W He's 22. The new detention center is like right across the street from his house. And he asked that we use only his first initial because he doesn't want retaliation from his new next door neighbor. He describes himself as a nature lover and he says this construction is so invasive he's thinking of moving away.

Daniel Rickman (4:52)

I walk out in the morning to large semi trucks. From my front porch, we just see the glowing light heights. It's industrial hell. It is. It is what I don't want to see in the future of America.

Jasmine Garst (5:06)

And Mary Louise, this is something that we're seeing play out more and more in towns across the country because what's happening is last year Congress gave ICE facilities $45 billion over four years to expand attention. ICE is now projected this year to have 16 new facilities to hold around 1500 people each and six other new large facilities to hold up to 10,000 people. And a lot of these are this warehouses that are slated to be reconverted.

Mary Louise Kelly (5:40)

And tell me a little bit more about some of the concerns that people are raising along with big trucks and glowing lights, as we just heard. And then on the flip side, I mean, I have to assume a new detention facility will bring new jobs to a town. Did you find anybody who likes all this?

Jasmine Garst (5:55)

Yeah, there's all kinds of concerns. You know, there's the ethics of these centers and the conditions inside. You know, since October, we've had 24 deaths in ICE detention. And in the case of this town of Roxbury, there's just a huge concern over water resources and increased sewage. I should point out that I was unable to find anyone in this town who supported this. They have a weekly Roxbury town hall meeting and the mood has gotten really tense. Even though the town council says it's against this project, the people I spoke to said they feel their leaders aren't really doing enough. Here's one townsperson, Susanna Oliveri. She's a local, and here she is confronting the council.

Local Residents (6:39)

Several real and valid suggestions have been made by people in this room, by concerned citizens, and all have been ignored. Instead, the vocal pro ICE council members sitting here today are rolling out the red carpet at the ICE Detention center. Are you guys. Are you guys even doing anything? Are you just helping them unpack and carry in their boxes, too?

Jasmine Garst (6:59)

The mayor of Roxbury declined an interview.

Mary Louise Kelly (7:02)

Kate, I want to bring you in here from New Hampshire because I understand some communities have put a stop to these sites. Tell us what happened in the. In the town of Merrimack.

Kate Dario (7:13)

Yeah. So Merrimack, which isn't far from the Massachusetts border, found itself thrust into this conversation on Christmas Eve when the Washington Post reported it was on a list of towns where new detention facilities would be built around the country. From that moment, across party line lines, there was significant pushback against this plan. Merrimack, like New Hampshire overall, is a pretty purple place. But this was a rare issue that united people with totally different political ideologies, often citing different reasons for their opposition. Here are Merrimack residents Becky Tancred and Megan Burke, who showed up to oppose the plan at a protest in January. I asked them how they felt when they heard the plan to construct a detention center in their town.

Local Residents (7:54)

Surprise is a word.

Jasmine Garst (7:55)

I couldn't believe it. It's just against everything that we stand for. Like, it's inhumane and no one deserves that treatment. It just doesn't make sense.

Kate Dario (8:03)

Throughout this, everyone complained that DHS was providing almost no information. And for weeks, they refused to even confirm the plan. But then, in late February, after two months of frustration and confusion, Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte met with former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in D.C. and then announced the plan was not going forward.

Mary Louise Kelly (8:24)

Not going forward. So I'll win for local control. What lessons, Kate, have activists in Merrimack taken from all this? And are they sharing those lessons? Like, are groups that oppose these new detention sites talking to each other.

Kate Dario (8:37)

Yeah. So one organizer told me engaging people who may not normally make noise was crucial to this fight. And people also worked across party lines and different communities across the country that were on this list started working together once this initial report came out. And now a grassroots group called Noice NH is trying to use its success as a model, sharing its strategies and experiences with other groups in other states who are still fighting.

Mary Louise Kelly (9:04)

This is so interesting because it sounds like you both through your reporting are finding local bipartisan opposition. But I'm curious, does that translate into any real cross party bipartisan federal effort to rein in ICE detention? Jasmine? No.

Jasmine Garst (9:22)

First of all, I should say both Kate and I have reached out to ice and a spokesperson told us that these aren't going to be warehouses, that they're going to be, quote, well structured detention facilities and that in Roxbury alone it's expected to bring 1300 jobs. Now to your question, on a federal level, several bills have been proposed by Democrats, but you know, they've gone nowhere in the Republican controlled Congress. And so local activists I've spoken to say that their strategy right now is delay, delay, delay and make it very expensive for the federal government to build these.

Mary Louise Kelly (9:59)

Kate, how about you?

Kate Dario (10:00)

Yeah. Following the Merrimack fight, New Hampshire's entire four member congressional delegation, all of them Democrats, introduced legislation requiring ICE to get feedback from communities and approval from state and local officials before building any new immigrant detention facility. It would certainly give local officials a lot more leverage to approve or reject new proposals. But as Jasmine notes, these ideas face very long odds. In the Republican controlled House and Senate

Mary Louise Kelly (10:26)

is reporter Kate Dario with New Hampshire Public Radio and jasmine garst with NPR's immigration team. Thanks to you both.

Kate Dario (10:32)

Thanks.

Jasmine Garst (10:33)

Thanks for having me.

Mary Louise Kelly (10:36)

This episode was produced by Connor Donovan with audio engineering by Ted Mebane and Hannah Glovna. It was edited by Eric Westervelt and Sarah Handel. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenig. It's consider this from npr. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

Dr. Kathleen Jordan (10:56)

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