In Texas, opposition is mounting against a proposed ICE jail and processing center that would be located inside a 640,000-square-foot warehouse in San Antonio’s Eastside. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones says city officials are exploring legal options to block the site after federal officials failed to respond to questions about its impacts on the environment and local community. The jail is also opposed by San Antonio-area Congressmember Joaquin Castro, who cited reports of inadequate medical care and abusive conditions in ICE detention centers, including sexual violence. Over the weekend, hundreds of protesters marched to the warehouse site calling on ICE to get out of San Antonio. 

In related news, immigrants detained at the Folkston ICE Processing Center in Georgia have released a video from inside denouncing inhumane conditions.

Idris Makhmudov: “We are immigrants from all over the world, whom Trump is locking up in prison-like detentions for nothing and for a long time.”

Mujtaba Qeyami: “Most of us are asylum seekers, those who came to the United States seeking protection from political persecution and violence in their home countries. Many fled out of fear becoming political prisoner in those countries, and one might say we became political prisoner in United States simply because we are immigrants.”

Genaro Jimenez: “We have one to two hours of yard a day, and the rest of the day we are locked up and gone. We’re strictly controlled and restricted in everything, what we can have, watch and play, where we can eat and sleep, shower, and go to toilet.”

Mohammadou Sall: “Honor, dignity, respect mean nothing here. The guards insult us, humiliate us, threaten us and punish us when they want.”

The Folkston ICE Processing Center is operated by the for-profit prison company GEO Group.