Could Inland Empire warehouses become ICE detention centers?

Until last year, the thought of Inland Empire warehouses storing humans instead of goods seemed far-fetched, if not outlandish.

But with the Trump administration reportedly planning to turn warehouses into immigration detention centers, the prospect looms like a real-life storm cloud for many in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“We’re very concerned about this,” said Eddie Torres, policy director for the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice.

The Inland Empire is home to an estimated 1 million or so immigrants — and a sprawling logistics industry.

“We have a lot of empty warehouses, not just warehouses in general,” Torres said, adding he fears U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, or ICE, “will target warehouses here … because of how close we are to the border as well.”

Moreno Valley residents also are worried, Mayor Ulises Cabrera said.

Roughly one in four of Moreno Valley’s 216,000 or so residents are foreign-born and the city, like its neighbors, has plenty of warehouses.

ICE representatives did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

So far, rumors of Inland warehouses becoming detention centers are just that.

Spokespeople for Fontana, Ontario, Perris and San Bernardino said their cities — which all have large logistics footprints — aren’t aware of any such plans. The same goes for unincorporated parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties and ex-March Air Force Base land near Riverside.

On Friday, Feb. 13, The Washington Post reported that ICE intends to spend $38.3 billion to buy warehouses in 22 states and convert them into 16 short-term detention centers and eight facilities capable of holding 7,000 to 10,000 detainees at a time.

“Rather than moving people around the country to any detention center with available beds, the new system of warehouses is designed to funnel them into a series of large-scale holding centers where they will await deportation,” ICE documents show, the Post reported.

In December, the newspaper, citing internal ICE documents, reported plans to convert warehouses around the country to hold more than 80,000 immigration detainees.

None of the proposed locations on a map the Post shared were in California, a deep-blue state where resistance to President Donald Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown is especially fierce.

Critics fear that what they see as mistreatment of ICE detainees would spread if more detention centers were built. Crowding, physical and mental abuse, inadequate food and water and poor medical care are common at ICE facilities, activists and former detainees allege.

These complaints extend to the ICE detention center in the San Bernardino County High Desert city of Adelanto.

“What I saw today was essentially a prison,” Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Palm Desert, said after a recent visit.

Many Inland residents, especially Latinos, are already on edge about immigration enforcement.

“People are afraid to go to work, take their kids to school, go to church, and do essentials like grocery shopping or visit a doctor,” Luz Gallegos, executive director of TODEC Legal Center, said via email.

Turning warehouses into detention centers would “only increase anxiety and fear,” said Gallegos, whose Perris-based nonprofit group helps migrants.

“These facilities do not just detain individuals. They create ripple effects. Workers disappear from job sites. Families lose income overnight. Local economies suffer.”

Most, if not all, Inland warehouses lack the restrooms, kitchen space and other necessities to house human beings. But it’s not clear who, if anyone, can require and enforce standards for those upgrades.

If the federal government were to turn a warehouse into a detention center in unincorporated Riverside County, for example, the county’s development rules would not apply, county spokesperson Felisa Cardona said via email.

Democrats, who hold all of California’s statewide offices and a legislative supermajority, would likely fight any ICE plans for warehouses in the Golden State.

“There are some serious human and economic consequences behind these actions,” Diana Crofts-Pelayo, of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, said via email.

“The federal government is trying to bypass state and local public processes, shutting out concerns of entire communities while attempting to warehouse human beings.”

ICE also should expect pushback locally were it to pursue Inland warehouses. Torres said his coalition is watching for federal paperwork that could signal detention center plans.

Cabrera said he is “completely opposed to any warehouse in Moreno Valley and even across the IE being used for these types of purposes for immigration detention or processing.”

“I would stand up against it and I’m sure the community is against it as well.”