ICE buys Berks County warehouse amid immigration detention expansion

Records show that a warehouse in Upper Bern Township was sold to the US government on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for $87.4 million.

Federal officials have been scouting cities and counties across the US for places to detain immigrants, and it looks as though they’ve settled on a location in Berks County.

Deed records show that a 520,000-square-foot warehouse in Upper Bern Township was sold to the US government on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for $87.4 million.

The warehouse purchase, which was recorded on Monday, comes as the Trump administration rolls out a massive $45 billion expansion of detention facilities financed by the president’s recent tax-cutting law.

Real estate developers promoted it as a “state-of-the art logistics center” located 45 minutes from Allentown, an hour and a half from Philadelphia and two hours from New York City.

Berks County spokesman, Jonathan Heintzman, said in an email that the county was informed Monday by the recorder of deeds of the purchase. Heintzman said the county had no prior knowledge of the sale and had no information on future plans for the property.

More than 75,000 immigrants were being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement as of mid-January, up from 40,000 when President Donald Trump took office a year earlier, according to federal data released Tuesday.

In a little over a year, the number of detention facilities used by ICE more than doubled, to 225 sites spread across a combined 48 states and territories. Most of that growth came through existing contracts with the US Marshals Service or deals to use empty beds at county jails.

Trump’s administration is now taking steps to open more large-scale facilities. In addition to the Berks County warehouse, last month ICE paid $102 million for a warehouse in Washington County, Maryland, and more than $70 million for one in Surprise, Arizona. It also solicited public comment on a proposed warehouse purchase in a flood plain in Chester, New York.

Federal immigration officials have toured large warehouses elsewhere, without releasing many details about the efforts.

“They will be very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards,” ICE officials said in a statement, adding: “It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”

Keystone senior newsletter editor Patrick Berkery contributed to this report.