ICE Suddenly Loses Permit for Planned Facility After Local Pushback

A Maryland community has nixed a previously issued building permit for a private detention center that local officials said would be used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Howard County government revoked the permit Monday, ending construction for the proposed detention facility at 6522 Meadowridge Rd. in Elkridge, just across the road from a quiet residential neighborhood and within half a mile of several schools.

“The retrofitting of private office buildings for detention use without transparency, without input, without clear oversight, is deeply troubling,” said county executive Calvin Ball during a Monday press conference. “In this case, the proposed detention center sits in an existing office park in close proximity to health care providers, schools, parks, and neighborhoods.”

The Howard County Council introduced two pieces of emergency legislation later that evening intended to formally prevent private entities from operating detention centers within county lines.

The five-person council will hold an emergency public hearing on the bills Wednesday, which will be followed by a vote.

“Since there are four co-sponsors on the bill, it is about 99.99 percent likely to pass,” County Council chair Opel Jones said to a standing ovation, WTOP News reported.

The proposed Elkridge detention center is the latest ICE contract to be killed in light of the agency’s escalating violence. Landowners in Oklahoma City backed out of a similar deal with the federal agency late last month, citing community safety concerns should ICE move in following the extrajudicial killings of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal agents.

It is far from the end of ICE’s encroachment in Maryland, however. The “Free State” already has three primary detention facilities, one of which is in Howard County. And last week, the Department of Homeland Security purchased a warehouse near Hagerstown, sparking concerns that the site could be used as yet another detention center for deportations.

ICE detained more than 3,200 people in Maryland in 2025, doubling the number of arrests of previous years, according to figures from the Deportation Data Project. Just one-third of the detainees had criminal convictions, while more than 50 percent had no criminal history whatsoever.