ICE Expansion Can’t Happen in the Dark


On Tuesday, WIRED published details of ICE’s planned expansion to more than 150 offices throughout the United States, including 54 specific addresses. If you haven’t read that yet, you should, at least because there might be one not far from you.

ICE has designs in every major US city. It plans to not only occupy existing government spaces but to share hallways and elevator bays with medical offices and small businesses. It is across the street from daycares and within walking distance of churches and treatment centers. Its enforcement officers and lawyers have cubicles a short drive from the giant warehouses tapped to hold the thousands of people ICE will detain.

Usually a rental hassle like this happens outside; it will involve many bids, renovation of selected areas, all processes and bureaucracy that slow down the work of the government but with accountability. Not so here. The General Services Administration, which oversees federal government assets, has been asked to bypass standard operating procedures in favor of speed and discretion. Internal documents reviewed by WIRED make clear that these locations, and the means by which they were obtained or planned, were intended to be secret from the start.

They shouldn’t be. That’s why we publish them.

ICE has more than $75 billion at its disposal, along with at least 22,000 officers and agents. Its occupation of Minneapolis is not an anomaly; it’s a blueprint. Communities deserve to know they will be next. People have a right to know who their neighbors are, especially if they are an invading force.

What we have reported so far only fills in part of the puzzle. This shows what ICE was planning in January, not ahead. More than 100 addresses remain unknown, some of them in states with high concentrations such as New York and New Jersey. The specific nature of the work some of these offices do remains unclear, as does how long ICE plans to be there.

The need to address these questions is urgent as ICE continues to metastasize. At the same time, the Justice Department has become increasingly aggressive in its dealings with journalists, and has repeatedly claimed that revealing any information about ICE agents or their activities is “doxing.” In Minnesota and beyond, ICE and CBP agents treat observers as enemies, arrest and reported harassment them with increased frequency. The DOJ quickly labels any perceived interference with ICE activity as a crime.

The Trump administration moved quickly through the scheme, relying on the inability of the courts, lawmakers, and journalists to keep up. WIRED will continue to report this story until we get answers.

Knowing where ICE is going next is not the same as stopping the agency’s campaign of brutality and violence. But it gives communities time to prepare for an influx of immigration enforcement on their streets. It gives local and national lawmakers insight into ICE’s unexplored reach. And it signals to the administration that it cannot act with impunity, or at least complete secrecy.

So please, go see where an ICE store is located near you. And know there is more to this story to tell.


This is an edition of Inner Loop newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.



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