Rumors of an ICE detention center, which have been compared to concentration camps, have prompted a declarative response from a billionaire Trump supporter.<\/p>\n
As rumors swirled that ICE was eyeing warehouse properties with the aims of creating new detention facilities\u2014an expansion of the now-defunct \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d<\/a> facility or the camps that separated immigrant families during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term\u2014billionaire Edward Roski, Jr. stood firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yes, the Department of Homeland Security had approached his firm, Majestic Realty, to sell a 1 million-square-foot facility that could hold up to 9,500 beds, Roski confirmed. But no, this deal was not going to happen\u2014and nor will any deal like it at his company.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMajestic Realty Co. has not and will not enter into any agreement for the purchase or lease of any building to the Department of Homeland Security for use as a detention facility,\u201d the company said, adding that they \u201clook forward to continuing our work to find a buyer or lease tenant that will help drive economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n The Los Angeles-based real estate company is owned by Roski, who is estimated to be worth $7 billion<\/a> and is co-owner of the Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Lakers, and the Crypto.com Arena. He is also a longtime Republican donor and donated a total of $200,000 to President Donald Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign, according to federal funding records cited by Business Insider<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The warehouse was one of more than two dozen locations identified by DHS as potential detention center sites, according to several news outlets. The company did not give a specific reason for its decision not to sell, or why it had been identified by DHS. Majestic Realty Co. declined to comment beyond the statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year, $45 billion was allocated to build new detention facilities in the One Big Beautiful Big Act. The administration plans to build more than two who dozen so-called \u201cmega centers,\u201d or converted warehouses to detain immigrants, Bloomberg reported<\/a> in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n DHS has been ramping up its purchase of new detention facility sites in recent months. In January, the administration bought a site in Williamsport, Md. for $102.4 million and another in Surprise, Ariz. for $70 million, according to Bloomberg<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Roski is not the first billionaire whose company has decided not to sell to DHS. Canadian billionaire Jimmy Pattison\u2019s development company backed out of a sale of a 550,000-square-foot Virginia warehouse, Bloomberg reported.<\/a> The sale was stopped following protests and a threat of a widespread boycott against all of Pattison\u2019s companies.<\/p>\n Several local news outlets reported<\/a> many people in Hutchins, a town of 6,000, opposed the potential ICE facility, including Mayor Mario Vasquez, who said<\/a> that the town\u2019s warehouses \u201care for storage, not for holding people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI want to first commend the owner of the building, Majestic Realty, for their decision, and we look forward to working with Majestic Realty to find a tenant that is a good fit for the City of Hutchins,\u201d Hutchins Mayor Mario Vasquez said in a statement after the announcements. \u201cYour concerns did not go unnoticed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rumors of an ICE detention center, which have been compared to concentration camps, have prompted a declarative response…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7150,4092,1724,17756,27,29,28,16400],"class_list":{"0":"post-168664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-billionaires","9":"tag-department-of-homeland-security","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-sales","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-texas-headlines","14":"tag-texas-news","15":"tag-warehouse"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}