ICE officials have awarded GardaWorld Federal Services a $17.3 million contract to renovate and operate a large detention and processing facility on San Antonio’s east side, moving forward with a project the city’s mayor had asked federal officials to abandon.
The contract, announced Thursday, covers renovation of a warehouse larger than 600,000 square feet that ICE purchased in early February for more than $66 million. Under the deal, GardaWorld will provide full wrap-around services to run a facility capable of holding up to 1,500 detainees awaiting deportation.
The award was granted through a Navy contracting program and runs from the date of the award through August 25, 2027, with the full $17.3 million committed upfront for the first year. The delivery order, listed as 70CDCR26FR0000103 in the federal SAM.gov contracting database, is part of a larger multi-year contract capped at slightly more than $1 billion.
Services required under the contract include detainee care and safekeeping, facility management and administration, food service, armed transportation, and security operations, all of which must meet ICE detention standards.
Mayor’s objections
San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones had pressed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to reconsider the plans. In an April letter, she wrote, “My community is not interested in hosting an ICE processing facility.”
Ortiz Jones also raised concerns about a lack of communication from federal officials, writing, “Despite numerous attempts, neither my office nor the city staff have received formal notification regarding ICE’s reported purchase and potential use of a 640,000+ square foot warehouse located at 542 SE Loop 410 Access Rd, San Antonio, Texas.”
Protests at the site
Local activist groups, including the San Antonio chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, have held protests at the warehouse in recent months in an effort to stop the facility from opening. Those demonstrations prompted ICE to install perimeter security fencing around the property to keep protesters off federal land.
Why San Antonio
The site’s location gives ICE access to nearby infrastructure supporting detention and deportation operations. Brooke Army Medical Center, a Level I Trauma Center, sits about 5 miles away. San Antonio International Airport is less than 15 miles from the site, and land ports of entry in Eagle Pass and Laredo are less than 200 miles away, offering options for land repatriation.
