ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here's Where It's Going Next

[Nevilledog]

https://www.wired.com/story/ice-expansion-across-us-at-heres-where-its-going-next/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/niLkI

FEDERAL RECORDS OBTAINED by WIRED show that over the past several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have carried out a secret campaign to expand ICE’s physical presence across the US. Documents show that more than 150 leases and office expansions have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas. In many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations.

In El Paso, Texas, for example, the agency is moving into a large campus of buildings right off of Interstate 10 near multiple local health providers and other businesses. In Irvine, California, ICE is moving into offices located next to a childcare agency. In New York, ICE is moving into offices on Long Island near a passport center. In a wealthy community near Houston, Texas, ICE appears poised to move into an office building blocks away from a preschool.

The General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal buildings and functions as the government’s internal IT department, is playing a critical role in this aggressive expansion. In numerous emails and memorandums viewed by WIRED, DHS asked GSA explicitly to disregard usual government lease procurement procedures and even hide lease listings due to “national security concerns” in an effort to support ICE’s immigration enforcement activities across the US.

“GSA is committed to working with all of our partner agencies, including our patriotic law enforcement partners such as ICE, to meet their workspace needs. GSA remains focused on supporting this administration’s goal of optimizing the federal footprint, and providing the best workplaces for our federal agencies to meet their mission,” Marianne Copenhaver, GSA associate administrator for communications, tells WIRED. “GSA is following all lease procurement procedures in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

*snip*

[kimbutgar]

1. Wednesday I saw something suspicious on the Embarcadero in Sf

A guys dressed in black directing and driving cars into a warehouse who looked like cops but weren’t SFPD

[B.See]

2. deployment, expansion? No. an OCCUPATION.

A strategic, nationwide occupation of all of America, especially in large metropolitan areas, by a largely unknown and unaccountable armed force, answerable to no one save Trump & his more immediate accomplices.

A masked, unidentified heavily armed force with total immunity and anonymity. A paramilitary OCCUPATION of THE NATION.

And for what purposes, I wonder (well no, actually I don't) save the complete bullshit reasons they give?

[GiqueCee]

3. Purging our essential government agencies...

... of Trump-humping traitors is going to be a heartbreaking exercise, but it absolutely MUST be done. Their world view is the complete antithesis of everything we, as a country, once aspired to. We will never be perfect, but we can be a fuck of a lot better than this.