In Surprise, Residents Push Back Against Proposed Detention Center

Lupita’s Mexican Restaurant is less than a mile from a newly proposed immigration detention center in Surprise, Arizona. Initially built as a warehouse, it would be used by the Department of Homeland Security to hold people captured by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Marta, a cook and cashier there, said a massive prison holding immigrants would be bad for business.

But the impact on the restaurant wasn’t her primary concern. Marta, who asked to be identified only by her first name because of fear of retaliation, is also worried about what more ICE agents roaming the local streets would mean for her neighbors.

Speaking in Spanish, she said a detention center down the street would be “very scary.” She was particularly worried about what she called the terrorizing effects on local schoolchildren.

And with studies showing that communities with immigration detention centers see more immigration arrests, she said the children were “going to be so scared.”

Last month, DHS purchased the warehouse — more than 418,000 square feet, equivalent to nearly seven football fields — in the northwest Phoenix suburb. The vacant building, surrounded by tidy landscaping and fields of empty parking lots, is one of many in a newly constructed industrial strip of the town.

Dysart High School and Dysart Middle School are just a mile away. Even closer, about 100 yards away, is a housing development. Next door to the proposed detention center is a cheer academy, where kids as young as 3 years old come to practice.

DHS’s purchase caught residents by surprise. The detention center would be part of the Trump administration’s unprecedented immigration crackdown, which includes the rapid expansion of detention capacity. In late January, the number of people locked in immigration detention centers surpassed 70,000, almost twice as high as a year ago.

A recent ICE memo, offering details of the massive ramp-up of detention, noted the price tag for warehouses in Arizona and other states will be more than $38 billion. DHS purchased the Surprise warehouse for $70 million.

While Arizona hasn’t experienced the same violent enforcement operations that have taken place in Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, or elsewhere, ICE watch groups have noted a recent increase in immigration arrests in Phoenix and Tucson.

Residents and leadership in Surprise are still wrapping their heads around what it all may mean for their community. At the same time, city residents in an area long considered a hotbed of "NIMBY-ism" are pushing against the detention center and demanding action from local and state governments to stop DHS from moving into Surprise.

Looking for answers

In the wake of the purchase, Surprise Mayor Kevin Sartor wrote a letter Feb. 11 to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, requesting details on the transaction: what was the intended use of the warehouse? Does it comply with zoning and land-use laws? What was the “expected level of coordination and support required from local law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services”?

As of Feb. 20, according to a Surprise spokesperson, DHS had not responded.

Sartor wasn’t the only politician seeking information. Three members of Congress — Reps. Paul Gosar (R-CD9), Yassamin Ansari (D-CD3), and Adelita Grijalva (D-CD7) — wrote to Noem seeking information and expressing concern, as did Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.

In her letter, Mayes warned that she has the authority to “compel the abatement of activities considered a public nuisance.”

In their letter, members of Congress asked DHS to describe whether the department “provided advance notice of the planned purchase to the City of Surprise, Maricopa County, or neighboring jurisdictions. If not, explain why advance coordination did not occur and identify who made that decision.”

U.S. Rep. Abe Hamedeh, a Republican who represents Surprise and other parts of north Phoenix, has not publicly commented on the detention center, and did not respond to emails from LOOKOUT.

As the community waits for answers, some are considering leaving town.

LOOKOUT spoke with residents of the neighborhood almost directly across the street from the warehouse. Two said they would move if the detention center opened.

“It’s not right. There’s a school right here,” one man said on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation.

“I’m Chicano, I already know what it feels like to be a target,” he said. “Nobody wants that thing here.”

He told LOOKOUT that he went to high school in Surprise and is particularly worried about the impact the detention center, and heavier ICE presence along with it, would have on local children.

Demanding action

At the Feb. 3 Surprise City Council meeting — days after the purchase announcement was reported — more than 1,000 people showed up to stand against the detention center, with around 100 speaking during the call to the public.

Weeks later, on Feb. 17, the city council meeting wasn’t as heavily attended, but residents of Surprise and greater Phoenix filled the chamber, spilling into the hallway and the sidewalk outside. Despite a handful of people speaking in support, the public was overwhelmingly against more ICE presence in town.

Signs spotted inside included: “No Human Warehousing in Surprise,” “De-ICE Arizona,” and “If you allow them to do this to others, they will eventually do this to you.”

Multiple speakers called out the torturous and deadly conditions in detention centers, often pleading with council members to stop the warehouse from being converted.

There is precedent in pushing back against expanding ICE detention. In late 2025 and early 2026, a series of jurisdictions in Plains states — some conservative strongholds — blocked ICE from converting warehouses into new detention centers: Oklahoma City, the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, and Kansas City, Missouri, all passed ordinances or made enough of a stink to ban or block ICE from buying buildings.

A city outside Dallas signaled it was rejecting a DHS bid on a warehouse. A city manager in Georgia said he won’t turn on the water for ICE. Both Chicago and Minneapolis banned ICE from using city property.

Locally, Pima County supervisors recently passed a resolution against ICE using county land or property.

In Marana, a small city north of Tucson, residents are also trying to stop another detention facility from opening. Last year, the state of Arizona sold an abandoned prison to a for-profit prison company, Management and Training Corp. Community forums and city council meetings over the past months have been the site of consistent attempts to convince local officials to block ICE from locking up people in Marana. One organization, Pima Resists I.C.E., was established with that singular focus.

But Surprise has an added element: residents have long fought other kinds of development that would lessen their home values. In 2023, residents in the local group Voice of Surprise fought back against a planned affordable housing development, complaining of improper zoning.

Beyond those bureaucratic concerns, there is the worry of what it means when ICE is operating directly across from your home.

One homeowner, living within a few hundred yards of the proposed detention center — and speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution — is a retired elementary schoolteacher. She identified as Hispanic and said she raised three girls in the neighborhood.

“A lot of people are nervous,” she said, noting that next door was a rental house where a young family lived. “What kind of place is this to raise kids? Someone knocks on your door and it could be agents in masks? No one wants to live like that.”

The woman said she used to fly the American flag from her garage. She has since taken it down.