On a Tuesday evening, in Surprise, Arizona, the quiet outside the City Council chamber was broken by something powerful: the people.
Brass instruments blared. Voices rose in unison. Mothers held babies on their hips. Veterans stood shoulder to shoulder with high school students. Together chanting: “The people united will never be defeated.” Handwritten signs cut through the desert air: “Americans do not store fellow human beings in warehouses!”
This is what democracy looks like when a community realizes something is being done to them, not with them. That is exactly what is happening in Surprise.
The federal government is attempting to impose a massive ICE detention facility on this city without the consent of its mayor, council, or residents. The opening of this facility is not inevitable. Across the country, communities have pushed back and stopped DHS in its tracks as it expands its mass network of deadly detention facilities. And they’ve won. Surprise can too. But only if its leaders choose courage over convenience.
This is not another routine zoning issue or just another item on a council agenda. This is a moral test for the Surprise City Council.
Other municipalities, like Howard County, MD and Kansas City, MO, have been creative in their legal approaches to blocking plans for ICE detention centers. Howard County refused all permits to retrofit an office building into a private detention center, and Kansas City passed a moratorium blocking permits for non-municipal detention facilities.
What kind of city does Surprise want to be?
ICE detention is not an abstract policy debate; it is a system with a documented record of harm. Across the country, these facilities have been plagued by overcrowding, medical neglect, and preventable deaths. As reported by The Guardian, in 2025, thirty-two people died in ICE custody, making it the deadliest year in more than two decades, according to data The Guardian compiled from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, American Immigration Lawyers Association, American Civil Liberties Union, American Oversight and Physicians for Human Rights. In 2026, the pace is already alarming. Sixteen people have already died, that’s one person every six days.
Here in Arizona, Emmanuel Damas died from an untreated tooth infection. A tooth infection. The kind of thing that is easily treatable in any functioning healthcare system. He didn’t have to die. ICE’s negligence made sure he did.
Now, federal officials are asking Surprise to trust them. DHS claims they will only hold people at the Surprise facility for three to seven days. But many of these facilities are run by for-profit, private companies. In Surprise, GardaWorld Federal Services LLC won the contract to operate the facility, the same private company with ties to “Alligator Alcatraz.” When a financial incentive is on the table, we already know what happens in practice: stays stretch longer, conditions worsen, and accountability disappears.
They also claim the facility will hold 542 people. But just recently, U.S. Congressmembers Greg Stanton, Adelita Grijalva and Yassamin Ansari walked into a facility in Mesa and described people packed in “like sardines.” Overcrowding has become the norm under Trump.
Why would Surprise be any different?
Even those who have worked inside these facilities have sounded the alarm. One ICE security guard in a Boston facility described witnessing women forced to lie in their own waste, comparing what he saw to images from school of "how they brought the slaves from Africa." He spoke out and was fired.
Early this year, a Marist poll showed that 65 percent of Americans said ICE’s tactics have gone too far in enforcing immigration laws. Ultimately, Congress must act to pass comprehensive immigration reform and give long-time residents of our communities a pathway to citizenship that currently does not exist. Give people the chance to do it the right way. Until then, there is no need for immigration laws to be enforced with such cruelty and violence toward fellow human beings. These concerns are not partisan. Abuses in immigration detention have occurred under administrations of both parties. I cared about it then, and I care about it now. This is about a consistent belief in human rights—and those rights are being violated inside ICE facilities today.
Supporters of this facility will point to jobs or to economic development for justification. But detention centers do not build communities; they burden them. They strain infrastructure, consume water resources, and place pressure on emergency services.
There are public health risks as well. We saw during COVID-19 how quickly disease spreads in overcrowded detention centers. Choosing to bring that risk into Surprise is unnecessary and reckless.
Beyond infrastructure and economics, the presence of an ICE facility erodes trust. It creates fear among immigrant communities and mixed-status families, discouraging people from reporting crimes, seeking medical care, or engaging with local institutions.
This is ultimately about values. Does Surprise want to be a city that values sustainable growth, public safety, and community well-being? Or one that becomes infamous for detention, neglect, and suffering?
If we look back at the darkest chapters of our history—slavery, segregation, Japanese internment, the forced removal of Indigenous children—we like to believe we would have done something. That we would have raised our voices. That we would have said, “Not here. Not in my community.”
That belief is being tested right now in Surprise, Arizona.
City leaders should take every available step to stop this facility from moving forward, including pursuing legal action, denying permits, refusing to provide municipal services, and enacting policies to prevent future proposals. These are lawful, responsible actions that prioritize the interests of residents.
At every council meeting, dozens of Surprise residents of all ages, races, and backgrounds have shown up again and again to say, “No.” Their concerns should carry weight.
One resident, Allyssa Estavillo, put it plainly after hearing hesitation from Mayor Kevin Sartor, who said it is not his place to fight this.
“Leadership is not about staying neutral when your community is asking for protection," Estavillo told the mayor during public comment. "Leadership is about action, and right now you are choosing not to act.”
Estavillo is right. Local government exists to serve its people—not to facilitate federal actions that undermine their safety and well-being. Cities across the country have exercised their authority to block similar facilities by denying permits, refusing municipal services, and passing ordinances to protect their communities. For the sake of public safety, fiscal responsibility, and basic human dignity, this ICE detention center should not open. Surprise must stand firm, hand-in-hand with its residents, and say no.
