We've been heads down in the bad news mine all day, so here's something uplifting that is not immigration related, and demonstrates how literally NO ONE wants data centers in their backyard. Calvert County, Maryland is as deep red as they come.

Amazon abandons plans for data center campus at Calvert Cliffs - Maryland Matters

Amazon Web Services is abandoning its plans to develop data centers on the campus of the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, a move that comes after fierce voter pushback against hyperscale data cente...

marylandmatters.org

Meanwhile, the General Services Administration last week issued a $128K contract to "convert a supply storage room into a secure detainee eating room" at the Calexico West Border Crossing.

NEW: CBP is shopping for a contractor to track down people the US has deported to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala and collect unpaid immigration fines — debts that can top $1.8 million a person.

U.S. Border Patrol wants a contractor to track down deported people abroad and collect their immigration fines

The agency gave bidders three business days to compete for a first-of-its-kind contract to collect fines from people it has deported to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.

projectsaltbox.com

🚨ICE has awarded CoreCivic $536.2 million to operate the Prairie Correction Facility in Appleton, Minnesota as an immigration jail. The period of performance begins August 11.

ICE has killed another person.

El Salvadoran Man Held by ICE at Delaney Hall Dies, Family Says

The detainee had an extensive medical history, including epilepsy, according to a lawsuit. He had complained about his face and hand going numb just before his death, his mother said.

thecityreporter.nyc

Case in point. This morning ICE posted a sole-source justification handing CSI Aviation up to $305.7 million, with no competition, for ICE Air removal-flight logistics (linked). CSI is the company Salus names in this piece as a beneficiary of exactly these noncompetitive vehicles.

Proton Drive

Securely store, share, and access your important files and photos. Anytime, anywhere.

drive.proton.me

Nick Schwellenbach@schwellenbach.bsky.social · 2d ago

There's a nasty fight between DHS contractors battling each other over deportation dollars and accusing each other of benefitting from a rigged system. Caught in the middle are immigrants, as @dfriedman.bsky.social, Will Sytsma, and I detail www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

There's a nasty fight between DHS contractors battling each other over deportation dollars and accusing each other of benefitting from a rigged system. Caught in the middle are immigrants, as @dfriedman.bsky.social, Will Sytsma, and I detail www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

As for-profit companies battle over ICE contracts, immigrants are caught in the middle

"There is so much money right now in detaining people."

motherjones.com

ICYMI: ICE has paused construction of its Gilroy, CA immigration camp. This comes after AG Bonta filed for a preliminary injunction in federal court, citing a FOIA’d record provided by PSB that shows ICE granted itself a set of categorical exceptions allowing work to proceed without NEPA reviews.

After lawsuit, ICE pauses construction of Bay Area detention facility

The voluntary pause extends until Sept. 9.

latimes.com

When ICE tells you they’re targeting the worst of the worst, this is what they mean. ICE arrested Ameaka at BWI airport, and immediately moved her out of state to a GEO facility in Louisiana. www.thebanner.com/community/lo...

This week ICE awarded new contracts to its largest for-profit jail providers: • $3M to GEO Group to turn Rivers Correctional in Winton, NC into a processing site • $9.4M to Akima at Buffalo, NY's federal detention center • $458M to GEO for a nationwide indefinite-delivery incarceration contract

This is a big deal — and if you’ve been following the ICE warehouse story and are looking at the future of ICE’s detention space expansion, this is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Amazing reporting @katyaschwenk.bsky.social

katya schwenk@katyaschwenk.bsky.social · 7d ago

How did a Boston developer mired in lawsuits, who is being chased down by creditors for tens of millions in debt, come to play a key role in securing billion-dollar deals for ICE? I wrote about the real estate moguls behind DHS's detention infrastructure buildout www.levernews.com/the-failed-d...

NEW: A federal judge threw out ICE's claim that state inspection law didn’t apply inside its detention centers. But since it took so long to adjudicate, ICE has now written the same language into contracts for four more facilities. It doesn’t need to hold up. It just needs to take years to resolve.

ICE’s New Detention Center Contracts Declare State Laws ‘Shall Not Apply’

One day after a federal judge ordered an ICE detention center opened to state health inspectors, the agency posted new contract terms that would void state oversight at four facilities.

wired.com

TPS for Haitians officially expires tomorrow. ICE is planning big operations, with Springfield, Ohio among the targets www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-hai...

ICE plans to target Haitians as Temporary Protected Status is set to end, sources say

The plans include arresting migrants in Ohio and quickly putting them on deportation flights to crisis-stricken Haiti, the internal documents indicate.

cbsnews.com

ICE posted an RFI for over 1,000 "surge parking" spaces in 14 cities across the nation. While the posting doesn't state a specific time, it could indicate increased presence in those cities in the near future. sam.gov/workspace/co...

We're doing another FOIA Forum next week that'll focus specifically on city council meetings, how to watch them / how to navigate different platforms, how to grab docs from them & and how to use them as jumping off points for additional public record requests: www.404media.co/our-new-foia...

Our New FOIA Forum! 7/30, 1PM ET

Join us for our latest FOIA Forum where we teach you how to pry records from the government.

404media.co

Baltimore Magazine's editors (unexpectedly) named Project Salt Box "Best Watchdog." Thank you to the readers, partners, and sources who make our work possible.

Camp East Montana, the country's largest immigration detention center, got a new operator this spring after three detainees died and tuberculosis and measles spread through the El Paso facility. Amentum took over in mid-March. Federal inspectors returned in May, per a newly released inspection file.

I took a hard look at the financial donors to ICE’s biggest supporters in Congress. These are people who want to significantly expand ICE’s power and have sponsored or co-sponsored legislation to do so. Here are the top 25 consumer brands bankrolling the biggest ICE supporters in Congress:

Happening now in Chicago: community members and activists are in the La Villita/Little Village neighborhood to demonstrate against continued ICE violence in across the country. In just the last two weeks, ICE agents have killed 2 men. A 3rd died running from agents, and a 4th died in ICE custody.

For your weekend reading ⤵️

Andrew Thrasher@tituslegaldesign.com · 3w ago

Publishing this on a Friday night was certainly a choice, but here we are. If there's one thing I've written about the 287(g) program that I'd like everyone to read, it's this. My latest newsletter, on a $22,500 per-child bounty system.

NEW: ICE wants to build immigrant detention cells at eight sites — including two centers it closed years ago and one, on St. Thomas, that has never existed. A $10B contract, reviewed by @projectsaltbox.com, would also pay the builder to scout ICE's next development sites.

Inside ICE's Plan to Stop Renting Detention Space and Start Building It

The solicitation, worth up to $10 billion, prices 208 cells across eight sites and lists 14 more places, from Honolulu to Guantánamo Bay, where work could later be ordered.

projectsaltbox.com

"According to investigative reporting outlet Project Salt Box, on July 8, over a week after saying they would sell the Roxbury warehouse, a notice filed in court stated that 'upon reconsideration,' the agency was still moving forward with plans for the warehouse."

Community Activism Forced Federal Government to Abandon Plans for ICE Warehouses

Activists are now watching to see whether the Trump administration will instead further privatize immigration detention.

truthout.org

Right-wing media outlet the Daily Wire is reporting that in the aftermath of two shootings in a week, ICE has issued orders to its agents to halt all vehicle stops. /the Daily Wire's problem with this is that it would mean lower arrest numbers, which, tough. www.dailywire.com/news/exclusi...

EXCLUSIVE: ICE Orders Agents To Cease All Vehicle Stops After Recent Shootings

Federal immigration officers across the country have been told to stop pulling over vehicles after recent shootings in Maine and Texas.Three Homeland Security sources told The Daily Wire Tuesday that ...

dailywire.com

AOC: I said this a couple of weeks ago: I would not be surprised if, when ICE funding started up again, we would start to see more civilian deaths at the hands of ICE. And that’s exactly what has happened. We didn’t see things like this happening with the same degree when we froze ICE funding.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assured a judge in Washington, D.C., that it was shuttering a controversial citizenship database, but would make the tool available to four Republican-led states on a different judge’s orders. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

DHS relaunches voter purge database in 4 red states

The federal government said Friday that it was trying to simultaneously comply with the two conflicting orders “to the greatest extent possible.”

democracydocket.com

Reposting for the Monday morning crowd. Over the weekend, ICE made an about-face on its Roxbury, NJ warehouse. Despite telling a federal judge on June 29 it was no longer converting the site into a detention camp, ICE said Saturday it's now moving forward with "considering" the conversion.

DHS Reverses Course on Roxbury, N.J., Warehouse, Telling Court It May Convert the Site to Detention After All

Eleven days after telling a federal judge it would sell the $129 million warehouse, the department says it is again considering retrofitting the building to hold up to 1,500 detainees.

projectsaltbox.com

Tonight we filed a FOIA request with ICE for the records behind its Roxbury, NJ about-face. The court filing yesterday said only that officials "reconsidered" — no reason given. The public deserves to know why the government took two contradictory positions before a federal judge in eleven days.

psb-foia/ice/Roxbury, NJ Use Reconsideration Documents at main · projectsaltbox/psb-foia

FOIA requests and released records for Project Salt Box's reporting on ICE detention and federal contracting. - projectsaltbox/psb-foia

github.com

This is why we don’t stop protesting in Salt Lake City. Their word means nothing.

Project Salt Box@projectsaltbox.com · 4w ago

🚨 ICE is backtracking its decision to sell the warehouse in Roxbury, NJ. In a late-night filing, lawyers for the agency told a federal judge that after "reconsideration" the agency was moving forward with plans to "consider" converting the facility into a detention center.

For the second time this year, the government's position on the Roxbury, NJ ICE warehouse has flipped within days. In February: purchased, not purchased, purchased. Now, per a new court filing: DHS said June 29 it would sell the $129M site. On July 8 it reconsidered. Deliberations "remain ongoing."

DHS Reverses Course on Roxbury, N.J., Warehouse, Telling Court It May Convert the Site to Detention After All

Eleven days after telling a federal judge it would sell the $129 million warehouse, the department says it is again considering retrofitting the building to hold up to 1,500 detainees.

open.substack.com

🚨 ICE is backtracking its decision to sell the warehouse in Roxbury, NJ. In a late-night filing, lawyers for the agency told a federal judge that after "reconsideration" the agency was moving forward with plans to "consider" converting the facility into a detention center.

Notice (Other) – #44 in STATE OF NEW JERSEY v. UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (D.N.J., 2:26-cv-02884) – CourtListener.com

Notice (Other)

storage.courtlistener.com