Members of Bexar County Commissioners Court deliberate during a meeting earlier this year. Credit: Stephanie Koithan
Bexar County Commissioners Court on Tuesday joined San Antonio City Council in formalizing its opposition to a planned ICE detention center on the city’s East Side.
County Commissioners voted 4-1 to approve a resolution that expresses the county’s strong opposition to ICE’s plan and calls on the federal government to be transparent about how it operates the site, which could house up to 1,500 migrants, according to a federal document.
City Council overwhelmingly approved a similar measure last week. That one assigns city staff to explore available options for limiting the opening of certain types of detention facilities here.
Neither vote is likely to have much impact on ICE’s plans since the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause excludes federal projects from local zoning laws.
Even so, Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert, who represents the East Side, said the resolution captures the court’s sentiment on the record — a necessary step before the county can move ahead with suits challenging to the project’s legality.
Grant Moody, the court’s sole Republican cast, the dissenting vote. He said the county’s options could blow up in its face as it looks to cooperate with the U.S. government officials on future projects.
ICE last month spent more than $66 million to buy the 640,000-square-foot San Antonio warehouse, which it plans to turn into a “processing center,” internal documents show. ICE has been snapping up facilities nationwide, enabled by congressional Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill, which increased the agency’s funding to $70 billion.
The majority of U.S. voters in a recent NBC News poll disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration. As part of an increasingly aggressive mass deportation plan, the White House surged federal agents in Democrat-controlled cities, leading to the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.
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