Nine months after the federal government bought a Hagerstown-area warehouse for a 1,500-bed immigration detention facility, the physical conversion remains frozen, not by objection from the county’s elected government, but by a lawsuit from Maryland’s Democratic state government and a federal judge who found a “crystal-clear” violation of environmental law. A federal watchdog report released this week found the government is walking away from most of its similar warehouse purchases nationwide. Williamsport is not one of them.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
WASHINGTON COUNTY — The Department of Homeland Security paid $102.4 million in cash on Jan. 16 for an 825,000-square-foot warehouse off Wright Road near Williamsport, with plans to convert it into a processing facility holding up to 1,500 immigration detainees. Nine months later, the building sits empty, construction halted by court order, over unresolved questions about whether the county’s water and sewer systems can handle it.
Washington County’s own elected government never stood in the way. On Feb. 10, the Republican-controlled Board of County Commissioners voted 4-0, with Commissioner Derek Harvey absent, to adopt a resolution declaring “full support” for DHS, ICE and local law enforcement’s cooperation on immigration matters. The resolution did not name the detention facility specifically, but it came down days after news of the purchase broke, and both supporters and protesters in the room understood it as backing for the project. Board President John F. Barr cut the meeting short and cleared the room after the vote drew jeers from the gallery.
“Washington County’s own elected government never stood in the way.”
The opposition came from Annapolis and from Maryland’s congressional delegation, not from Hagerstown. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown sued DHS and ICE on Feb. 23, arguing the agency had bought the warehouse and was moving to convert it into a detention facility without the environmental review required under the National Environmental Policy Act. A month earlier, the state’s entire Democratic congressional delegation, including Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks and Rep. April McClain Delaney, had written to DHS objecting to the project.
- Jan. 16: DHS purchases the 54-acre Williamsport warehouse for $102.4 million.
- Feb. 10: Washington County commissioners vote 4-0 to declare support for DHS and ICE cooperation.
- Feb. 23: Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown sues DHS and ICE over the purchase.
- March 6: DHS awards a $113.1 million contract, with options that could grow to $642 million over three years, to retrofit the site.
- March 11: A federal judge issues a temporary restraining order halting construction.
- April 15: The judge grants a preliminary injunction extending the halt; he issues a written opinion explaining the ruling two days later.
The lawmakers’ letter, sent three weeks before the county commissioners voted, argued that building the facility “without the consent of state and local officials or our constituents is a serious violation of the principles of federalism and self-governance.” It was a written appeal to DHS, not a legal filing, and it came before Washington County’s own commissioners had taken any position. The county board’s vote of support came three weeks later, on Feb. 10. It was Brown’s lawsuit, filed nearly two weeks after that, that ultimately went to court.
U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson sided with the state. At an April 15 hearing, he extended his earlier restraining order into a preliminary injunction blocking further retrofitting while the case proceeds, though the government was allowed to install fencing and make basic repairs. In his written opinion two days later, Hurson called the case a “crystal-clear example” of a federal agency failing to comply with the basic requirements of federal environmental law. Gov. Wes Moore called the decision a win.
“Hurson called the case a ‘crystal-clear example’ of a federal agency failing to comply with the basic requirements of federal environmental law.”
“This preliminary injunction is a major and welcome step forward,” Moore said.
Brown had made the same argument from the start.
“We will not let DHS and ICE rush through the proper legal process,” Brown said.
DHS spokespeople dismissed the earlier court rulings in the case as politically motivated rather than legally grounded, repeating similar language after both the March restraining order and the April injunction.
“It’s about trying to stop President Trump from making America safe again,” a DHS spokesperson said in March.
The case has continued even as DHS’s own leadership turned over. President Trump fired Secretary Kristi Noem in March, and the Senate confirmed Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin as her successor on March 24, roughly three weeks before Hurson’s ruling. ICE’s acting director changed hands too, from Todd Lyons to former private prison executive David Venturella, on June 1. Mullin has since said he is reviewing detention warehouse projects nationwide, leaving open, at the time, whether the Williamsport project would survive that review.
DHS responded to the injunction by opening a formal environmental review in June, the process Brown’s lawsuit said should have happened before the purchase. Public comments were due July 1. Brown, joined by the heads of Maryland’s environment, natural resources, transportation and health departments, urged ICE to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement rather than a narrower assessment, and suggested the agency simply sell the property instead. The Sierra Club and a local group called Hagerstown Rapid Response filed similar objections, the latter saying it collected more than 3,500 public comments opposing the project before the deadline. A separate letter from Washington County-area residents and local elected officials, hosted by the ACLU of Maryland, raised similar infrastructure concerns.
The numbers both sides have used for the facility’s size have shifted over the course of the litigation. DHS and county officials have publicly discussed a 1,500-bed facility from the start. But in filings defending the project in court this spring, the agency told the judge its actual plans called for 542 detainees. Then, in the June scoping notice that opened the environmental review, ICE described modifications built to accommodate up to 1,500 people again, including a 750,000-gallon on-site water storage tank meant to reduce the facility’s draw on Hagerstown’s municipal water supply. Public planning documents, in other words, have gone from 1,500 to 542 and back to 1,500, without DHS explaining the discrepancy.
“Public planning documents have gone from 1,500 to 542 and back to 1,500, without DHS explaining the discrepancy.”
Utility planning has continued even while the physical conversion stays frozen by court order. County Administrator Michelle Gordon told commissioners in September that federal contractor KVG contacted the county in August and is preparing an engineering study covering electricity, natural gas, water and wastewater. Representatives of KVG, Potomac Edison, Columbia Gas, the city of Hagerstown and the county met in early September to review the facility’s anticipated utility needs. Gordon has repeatedly stressed that the county has no approval authority over the federal project and no jurisdiction to stop it.
The facility’s future became considerably clearer this week for a different reason. A Government Accountability Office report released Sept. 24 found that ICE pursued its nationwide push to convert 11 purchased warehouses into detention space without necessary analysis and planning, resulting in millions of dollars in waste, and that the agency now intends to sell seven of the 11. Williamsport is not among them. GAO identified it as one of only four warehouses ICE still intends to convert, alongside a facility in Surprise, Arizona, that has drawn a similar lawsuit from that state’s attorney general. The report found ICE has already obligated $113 million for the Maryland renovation contract and $313 million for Arizona’s, and that conversion work at both sites remained largely on hold as of September because of pending litigation.
The physical conversion of the warehouse remains frozen by court order, and ICE has not released a draft environmental assessment or announced a final decision on the property. But the GAO report answers a question that had been open since Secretary Mullin took over DHS in March: unlike most of the warehouses purchased under his predecessor, Williamsport is not being abandoned. Washington County is still waiting to find out whether the facility its elected government welcomed will open, but this week’s findings suggest the federal government has no plans to walk away from trying.
What to Watch
“Unlike most of the warehouses purchased under his predecessor, Williamsport is not being abandoned.”
- Whether ICE releases a draft environmental assessment or environmental impact statement, and what it concludes about local water and sewer capacity.
- Whether the underlying lawsuit, State of Maryland v. Mullin, proceeds to a final ruling or is resolved before then.
- Whether DHS moves to lift the injunction once the environmental review is complete, and how quickly construction could resume if it does.
Sourcing: This article draws on reporting from the Baltimore Banner, the Daily Record, CBS News Baltimore, WMAR, NBC4 Washington, Fox 5 DC, WYPR and Maryland Matters between January and April 2026, along with Attorney General Anthony Brown’s July 1, 2026, comment letter to ICE and the companion letter from Maryland’s environment, natural resources, transportation and health department heads, both published by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office. The Feb. 10 commission vote count came from LocalNews1’s reporting on the meeting; the September utility-planning update also came from LocalNews1’s coverage of the county commissioners’ meeting. Details on the KVG LLC contract’s $642 million ceiling value came from the Baltimore Banner’s reporting on federal contracting records. Details on DHS leadership changes came from the Department of Homeland Security’s own announcements and reporting by CNN, AFP and the Associated Press. Details on the 542-detainee figure and the June scoping notice came from Project Salt Box’s reporting on ICE’s environmental assessment process. The GAO findings came from the Government Accountability Office’s Sept. 24, 2026, report, “Immigration Detention: Urgent Planning Needed to Avoid Further Waste of Taxpayer Dollars” (GAO-26-108663), with additional confirmation that Williamsport is among the retained sites from reporting by Newsweek and the Daily Record. The congressional delegation’s letter was published by the office of Rep. April McClain Delaney. The Sierra Club Maryland Chapter’s comment letter and a community letter hosted by the ACLU of Maryland were obtained directly from those organizations’ websites.
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