By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
The Merrimack warehouse property at the center of concern about Immigration and Customs Enforcement operating in New Hampshire is on a list of properties the federal agency wants to acquire, according to Bloomberg.
The financial services news agency reported Thursday that the 50 Robert Milligan Parkway warehouse is on a list of two dozen properties around the country that ICE wants for its mass arrest and detention program.
The Trump Administration has publicly stated it wants to deport a million people a year, which would require the ability to hold 100,000 people in detention. The Robert Milligan Parkway property in Merrimack is listed by ICE as being able to hold 500 people, according to Bloomberg.
The property has not been acquired by ICE yet, though. The property is owned by DRI TCC 50 RMP LLC based in Dallas, Texas. That LLC shares the same physical address as property development company Trammell Crow. Trammell Crow broke ground on the warehouse in 2023 in a public ceremony. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The possibility that ICE would begin holding people in an improvised warehouse-turned prison has already sparked protests in Merrimack. Hundreds of people have been demonstrating against ICE in Merrimack since an unconfirmed report in the Washington Post first linked Merrimack to ICE.
Last week, the Merrimack Town Council sent a letter to state and federal officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, opposing any ICE facility in their community. Council Chair Finlay Rothhaus wrote ICE taking over the building would cause a tax increase for residents.
“If the potential non-verified warehouse is purchased by the federal government, there would be a $529,000 decrease in tax revenues,” Rothhaus wrote. “This would result in an increase on the tax rate for our citizens.”
But opposition to ICE goes deeper than a potential property tax increase. The agency has been violently arresting legal residents and citizens, including children. Some of the people arrested, including citizens, have been sent to foreign prisons and subjected to deplorable conditions.
The people held in domestic ICE facilities have been subjected to inhumane and cruel treatment, and there are numerous reported deaths in the facilities. This month, a Texas medical examiner ruled the death of Cuban man Geraldo Lunas Campos a homicide. The Associated Press reported Campos died of asphyxia caused by compression of his neck and torso. ICE initially announced that Campos died after experiencing “medical distress.”
ICE agents killed two people this month during a brutal operation in Minneapolis, Minnesota largely targeting minorities regardless of immigration status. The operation met with widespread protest, and ICE responded with greater violence.
On Jan. 7, mother Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot at point blank range by an ICE agent as she appears to be attempting to drive away from agents. Alex Pretti, 37, was shot several times in the back by ICE agents after he was forced to the ground and disarmed. Pretti was a nurse at a Veterans Administration hospital.
Noem, other Trump officials, and President Donald Trump himself all initially described Pretti and Good as violent, left wing activists trying to harm ICE agents, despite the video records giving lie to the government statements.