DHS wanted to build the largest ICE detention complex in the US. Here’s how the plan just got killed.

(RNS, El PASO MATTERS) — The Trump administration is scrapping plans to convert a nearly 1 million-square-foot Socorro, Texas, warehouse complex into a mega immigration detention center and training center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said Tuesday (Aug. 11).

The complex was originally envisioned as the largest immigration detention facility in the country.

Escobar said in a statement that the Department of Homeland Security has transferred the Socorro warehouses to the General Services Administration, the agency in charge of federal properties. “This means the warehouses will be put up for sale and they will no longer be used by the federal government for detention purposes,” Escobar said.

In recent weeks, DHS had indicated it was moving away from a plan begun earlier this year by then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to buy and convert 11 warehouse complexes across the country for use as detention facilities in support of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies. “DHS is moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners,” a DHS spokesperson said in a written response to El Paso…