Community must keep watch on Surprise ICE facility

Brent Peak

Submitted photo/Northwest Valley Indivisible

OPINION — On June 30, the federal government agreed, in a filing in U.S. District Court, to stop moving forward on the proposed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Surprise.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security will not detain anyone at the site and will not begin construction to convert it into a detention center, not until it completes the environmental review it tried to skip.

This didn't happen because DHS had a change of heart. DHS didn't want this. They did it because Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued them.

They did it because that lawsuit included information from a Surprise resident who dug up the chemical hazard data DHS couldn’t be bothered with but will now have to face. They did it because thousands of residents in this community showed up to protest, spoke at council meetings and refused to let this happen quietly.

That's the whole story. This is a real win. It is proof that when residents do the research, show up and refuse to go away, the federal government has to answer for what it’s doing in our backyard, even if the mayor and City Council of Surprise won’t.

Surprise deserves leadership willing to say plainly and on the record what many of us know to be true, that they don’t want this facility in their city. But instead, they sit in silence, staring blankly at residents who plead for their help during City Council meetings.

This is not the end of the fight. DHS can still do security and construction work at the site while this review plays out, and nothing in this agreement guarantees that the facility never opens.

The environmental review DHS now has to complete is exactly where the next fight will happen, and this community must keep watching.

Brent Peak is co-chair of the progressive grassroots group, Northwest Valley Indivisible. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.