The ICE Expansion Won't Happen in the Dark

"ICE has designs on every major US city. It plans to not only occupy existing government spaces but share hallways and elevator bays with medical offices and small businesses. It will be down the street from daycares and within walking distance of churches and treatment centers. Its enforcement officers and lawyers will have cubicles a modest drive away from giant warehouses that have been tapped to hold thousands of humans that ICE will detain."

"Normally a leasing frenzy like this would happen out in the open; it would involve multiple bids, renovations of selected spaces, all the process and bureaucracy that makes government work slow but accountable. Not so here. The General Services Administration, which manages federal government properties, was asked to skip standard operating procedures in favor of speed and discretion. Internal documents reviewed by WIRED make clear that these locations,"

ICE plans an expansion into more than 150 office spaces across the United States, with 54 specific addresses identified. The agency intends to occupy existing government spaces and co-locate alongside medical offices, small businesses, daycares, churches, and treatment centers. The General Services Administration was asked to bypass standard leasing procedures for speed and discretion, and internal documents make clear the acquisitions were intended to be secret. ICE controls more than $75 billion and at least 22,000 officers and agents, and similar deployments are planned nationwide. Over 100 addresses remain undisclosed, and the precise functions and durations of some offices remain unclear.

Read at WIRED