Controversy over Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans at a warehouse near Hagerstown, Maryland, moved to a Baltimore courtroom Wednesday.
A federal judge was scheduled to hear arguments on Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s motion to block renovation and construction of the building in Williamsport while the state’s is litigated.
ICE is spending , and according to the lawsuit, moved forward with the project without required federal environmental reviews.
In the motion for a preliminary injunction, the attorney general’s office said that unless the judge pauses construction, “Defendants will undoubtedly resume their breakneck efforts to renovate, construct, and operate their planned detention facility without due regard for its impact on public health and the environment.”
When the suit was filed in February, ICE planned a detention center that could hold up to 1,500 detainees. The motion said the center would overwhelm the sewage and water systems in the town of 2,000 residents.
The warehouse currently receives drinking water from the City of Hagerstown via a two-inch domestic service line and has an approved allocation of 800 gallons per day.
“A detention facility providing 24/7 occupancy for up to 1,500 people is likely to need around 187,500 gallons per day of drinking water,” the motion said.
The warehouse is also served by an 8-inch sewer main.
“Once the facility becomes operational, sewage backups are likely both at the facility and throughout the area,” Brown said in the filing.
The state said operation of ICE’s planned detention facility “will also create a high likelihood of infectious disease outbreaks, harming the health of individuals at the facility and the surrounding community and undermining the overall state of public health in Maryland.”
In its response to the request for a preliminary injunction, the Trump administration said it had done an environmental analysis, and that the facility would initially accommodate up to 542 detainees.
“No off-site sewer upgrades or new sewer connections are anticipated for the facility,” according to the administration’s filing, which said any environmental impact from operating the center would be minimal.
The Trump administration also argued “the public interest and balance of the equities weigh in favor of the facility because of the compelling and critical national security interest in enforcement of immigration law.”
The administration said Maryland has failed “its burden to demonstrate that the facility will result in irreparable harm to its interests,” which is a requirement for a judge to grant a preliminary injunction before trial.
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