That included three warehouses on the edge of Socorro, about 15 miles southeast of the El Paso city limits, that had been built to hold nuts harvested from nearby pecan groves. The property, sold to DHS for $123 million by a Kansas City area developer<\/a>, included three reinforced concrete warehouses of about 296,000 square feet each, with an adjacent plot of land available for expansion.\u00a0<\/p>\n DHS initially said the Socorro facility would hold up to 8,500 immigrants awaiting deportation, which would have made it one of the largest immigrant detention centers<\/a> in the country.<\/p>\n After Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin replaced Noem in March, DHS said it was canceling plans to convert at least seven of the 11 warehouses<\/a> \u2013 though not the Socorro site. In June, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement told El Paso leaders<\/a> that the privately run detention facility would be smaller than previously announced, but didn\u2019t provide details.<\/p>\n But local leaders and residents, many organized by local parishes, remain outspoken about their concerns, citing environmental, as well as moral reasons.<\/p>\n Socorro has transformed over the past 50 years from a mostly agricultural area with no running water or sewer service into an El Paso suburb of almost 40,000 people. Pecans, cotton and other crops are still produced in the area, but much of the historic farmland has been sold for housing developments.<\/p>\n Socorro opposition to the detention center began to grow in April, when the El Paso Interreligious Sponsoring Organization began meetings with parish leaders in the town\u2019s three Catholic churches to discuss what the planned detention center might mean.<\/p>\n EPISO is part of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a national network that works with local religious congregations around the country \u2013 primarily but not exclusively Catholic \u2013 to organize communities around issues that local residents identify as most important.<\/p>\n In El Paso and throughout Texas, the most consistent issue for IAF affiliates over the past 50 years has been water. In El Paso County alone in the 1980s, more than 80,000 residents lived in homes without water or sewerage services. Hundreds of thousands of other residents along the Texas-Mexico border lived in so-called colonias, illegal subdivisions built without basic infrastructure.<\/p>\n Organizing by IAF organizations led to hundreds of millions of dollars in state investments starting in the late 1980s that brought basic water and sewerage infrastructure to most \u2013 but not all \u2013 of the state\u2019s colonias.<\/p>\n EPISO began focusing on the proposed Socorro immigrant detention center in April, based largely on Catholic social teaching on the treatment of immigrants. Organizers put together what they call \u201chouse meetings\u201d at each of the town\u2019s three Catholic churches.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when people learned what was happening, then the water issues started to surface,\u201d said Surya Kalra, EPISO\u2019s lead organizer. Officials with El Paso Water and the Lower Valley Water District said hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day would be needed for a large detention facility.<\/p>\n House meeting participants started talking about water issues they were seeing at their own homes, especially with water pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople started to realize that they weren\u2019t isolated in their own issues on water pressure and water backup and all that stuff,\u201d Kalra said. \u201cThat\u2019s what house meetings do when you have people get together and they start to share their stories, they realize that what they thought might be their own personal failing is actually a systemwide difficulty.\u201d<\/p>\n On May 28, more than 40 people organized by EPISO went to a meeting of the Lower Valley Water District board. The agenda didn\u2019t include any items about the detention center or water pressure issues, but several residents addressed the board in English and Spanish during the public comment portion of the meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m completely opposed to detention centers on so many levels, on a human level, ethical, moral, our faith, we just don\u2019t believe in that. The way we\u2019re treating them, it\u2019s just abhorrent,\u201d Padilla said at the meeting. \u201cBut on a practical level, we don\u2019t have water, and we have several issues at our house. The most common one is the pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are many generations of families, and I would hate for us to be known as the city that is holding this many people that don\u2019t deserve to be treated the way they\u2019re going to be treated,\u201d said Grace Herrera, who attended the meeting with her daughter and granddaughter.<\/p>\n Several residents focused on a disruption of service on May 18, when the area\u2019s water pressure dropped dramatically. Lower Valley Water District officials didn\u2019t respond to El Paso Matters\u2019 questions on the water pressure issues raised by residents.<\/p>\n A Socorro dialysis center had to shut down for the day, said Alicia Mossman, whose nephew works at the facility.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were trying to disperse these people to other dialysis centers. Many of the people that show up for dialysis are dropped off and have no way to get them elsewhere, so they had to do without dialysis that day,\u201d she told the water board.<\/p>\n Herrera\u2019s granddaughter, Eleina Gibbs, started to tell the water board about what happened at her middle school the day the water pressure dropped, but she was too soft-spoken for the board and audience to hear. So her mother, Gracie Ortiz, read her letter for her.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one could go to the restroom or drink water. This continued from 8:30 in the morning to the end of the day,\u201d Gibbs\u2019 statement said.<\/p>\n Her letter said that by the end of the school day at 3:30 p.m., she rushed home to use the restroom, only to find it occupied by her grandmother. \u201cI desperately waited for her to get out. When she was done, I rushed to get in.\u201d<\/p>\n The girl\u2019s statement said her parents weren\u2019t told that students didn\u2019t have access that day to the restroom or drinking water, a claim disputed by the Socorro Independent School District.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cParent messages were sent by the campus, and water was made available for restrooms and consumption,\u201d district spokesperson Daniel Escobar said. \u201cThe campus did consolidate to use specific restrooms on campus. Drinking water also was offered for students and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosalinda Vigil, the water district board chair, was clearly moved by Gibbs\u2019 statement.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a resident, and I, too, have complained about pressure and certain issues, and I pray and promise that we hopefully won\u2019t have to go through this again,\u201d Vigil said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to address these issues, and we\u2019re going to talk about them, so that no one should ever have to go through this again.\u201d<\/p>\n EPISO and the parishes continue efforts to inform residents about the detention center and ongoing water concerns, and meet regularly with local government officials. Democratic U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar of El Paso met with EPISO representatives shortly after a June 12 meeting where Acting ICE Director David Venturella told her the administration had adjusted its plans for the Socorro warehouse facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Department of Homeland Security is going to proceed with using those warehouses, but there will not be 8,500 people held there,\u201d Escobar said during a news conference after her meeting with Venturella. \u201cThey said that they\u2019ve changed the plans a little bit. It will be a training facility. It will be a campus, essentially, for ICE, with offices and conference rooms, but yes, there will be privately run detention.\u201d<\/p>\n Escobar and other El Paso area officials said even a scaled-down detention facility would stress water and public safety infrastructure in the Socorro area.<\/p>\n DHS officials didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment from El Paso Matters about its plans for the Socorro warehouses.<\/p>\n Kalra said EPISO will remain vigilant in its efforts to stop the detention center, and to advocate for improved water services for Socorro\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n She said the Catholic parishes will play a key role in those efforts because they serve as a place of trust for many residents.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re doing this outside of the structure of an institution or a church, it\u2019s catch as catch can. But churches have deep networks of relationships of trust that help people understand and interpret what\u2019s going on and start to get organized quickly,\u201d Kalra said.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Padilla, who was part of the fight to bring water to the colonias in the 1980s, said she believes that it\u2019s possible to organize the community again around the detention center and water issues.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe we can, but it does take involvement by organizations that are already organized, like churches, and that\u2019s why I am so happy to see that our church is behind this effort, and that San Felipe (another Socorro Catholic church) is behind it, and others. But that\u2019s what it takes, and I do believe we can do it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/dhs_facility_rv1.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Socorro-parish.jpg\")
El Paso Interreligious Sponsoring Organization members, from left, Alicia Mossman, Maria Estela Padilla and Gerardo Cruz at a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe at San Felipe de Jesus Catholic Church in Socorro, Texas. (Robert Moore \/ El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CB_SocorroWater-1.jpg\")
Grace Herrera, center, was flanked by her daughter, Gracie Ortiz, left, and granddaughter Eleina Gibbs, at a May 28 board meeting of the Lower Valley Water District. (Corrie Boudreaux\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Socorro-letter.jpg\")
Gracie Ortiz holds a statement her daughter, Eleina Gibbs, prepared for a meeting of the Lower Valley Water District board on May 28, 2026. (Robert Moore\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CB_ICEWarehouse-44.jpg\")
The Department of Homeland Security purchased a three-building warehouse complex in Socorro for the purpose of creating a new migrant detention facility. Photo was taken March 20, 2026. (Corrie Boudreaux\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n