ICE reportedly wants to build a detention center in KC. It’s unwelcome, Cleaver says
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- DHS reportedly seeks warehouse space to hold 80,000 ICE detainees.
- Rep. Cleaver condemned Kansas City plan and demanded DHS answer local questions.
- Local officials report no DHS coordination; community leaders warn of harm.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reportedly plans to renovate industrial warehouse space in Kansas City to incarcerate thousands of immigrants arrested by federal authorities.
A Washington Post report identified Kansas City as one of seven sites where DHS is seeking to establish large-scale detention centers, each of which would house between 5,000 and 10,000 people caught up in the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown.
In a stinging letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Kansas City’s longtime Democratic congressman Emanuel Cleaver condemned the warehouse proposal as dehumanizing and unwelcome.
“Since day one, this administration has fractured communities with ICE raids and severed families with hundreds of thousands of deportations, sweeping up legal residents and American citizens in the process,” Cleaver wrote in the letter, which was also addressed to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Tom Lyons.
Cleaver continued, “While we believe strongly in an orderly immigration system, Kansas Citians and I do not want to see the stench of these extreme mass deportation policies centralized in Kansas City.”
Border czar Tom Homan claimed on social media in December that the Trump administration had deported more than 579,000 people in 2025. DHS has had to scramble to find enough space to incarcerate the scores of detainees slated for deportation.
According to The Post’s reporting, DHS is seeking warehouse space to accommodate 80,000 ICE detainees. The Post reviewed a draft solicitation for contractors to help transform warehouses into secure detention facilities.
Other large-scale ICE facilities are planned for Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, and Georgia, The Post reported.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday about how Kansas City factors into ICE’s long-term plan. She previously told The Post she could not confirm their reporting on the agency’s efforts to renovate industrial warehouses.
No details of the plan have been made public, including where in Kansas City an ICE facility would be located or how soon it could become operational.
In his letter, Cleaver asked Noem and Lyons to answer a series of questions, including when the location of proposed facilities will be made public, whether coordination with local governments has already taken place and whether the administration will honor local zoning policies and processes.
Megan Strickland, a spokesperson for Mayor Quinton Lucas, said local officials have not had discussions with DHS about the agency’s reported plans to centralize ICE operations in the city.
“The Mayor’s Office is working to verify press reports of potential DHS or ICE detention facilities in Kansas City,” Strickland said in an email. “The Mayor stands in agreement with the words of Congressman Emanuel Cleaver that such a facility would be a stain on Kansas City.”
Last year, the Department of Justice backed CoreCivic in its legal challenge, arguing that the company should be allowed to reopen its shuttered prison in Leavenworth as an ICE detention center without first securing local officials’ approval. After a string of rejections to CoreCivic’s challenge in state and federal court, the company took steps to apply for a zoning permit. The Leavenworth facility has beds to accommodate 1,033 detainees, company officials have said.
Cleaver wrote that the proposed plan to create massive regional ICE hubs in Kansas City and elsewhere threatens to “degrade our society, divide our communities, waste taxpayer dollars, and stress the civility of our institutions to the point of fracture.”
“No human deserves to be rounded up as cattle, shipped across the country, imprisoned in warehouses, and stripped of their dignity,” he wrote.
This story was originally published January 13, 2026 at 5:40 PM.
