1. United States
2. Md.
3. Letter

I write today to ask you to join with Gov. Moore and the MD state legislature to refuse DHS’s attempts to expand its illegal and inhumane treatment of immigrants and people of color into Maryland’s communities. Specifically, I urge you to publicize and continue to oppose ICE's proposed 1,500-bed detention facility at 16220 Wright Road in Williamsport, MD by whatever means are available to you. DHS has provided no site plan, no engineering specifications, no infrastructure assessments, and no operational projections for this project, yet they have described its projected use as an “in-kind” change to the intended purpose. Describing the conversion of a package warehouse into a detention center housing 1,500 people as an "in-kind" change is not a credible characterization. It is a fundamental transformation of land use, infrastructure demand, and community impact. Even if the proposed center was going to be retrofitted to keep 1,500 people safe and healthy—and based on reports of existing centers, it is not—a town of 2,000 residents cannot absorb this facility.  More importantly, however, centers like these are simply wrong. Concentrating people of all ages with little or no criminal record, no cause for detainment, and no credible threat in disease-spreading conditions does nothing to keep the US safe. It runs afoul of every human right, legal statute, and moral norm we claim as a nation to uphold.  Please require ICE to make public concrete project documentation on every planned or completed warehouse purchase across the US. And please loudly, fervently oppose the detention center in Williamsport - and everywhere else. Thank you for your time.