Three large warehouse facilities purchased earlier this year by the Department of Homeland Security in Socorro, Texas may be used in the immediate future for office and conference space.
In a news conference, Democrat Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes Socorro, said she has been informed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the structures are no longer being exclusively considered for housing immigration detainees.
At one point earlier this year, it was suggested that the three facilities, encompassing around 826,000 square feet, could be used to house upwards of 8,500 people.
But concerns about how that housing would work, said Escobar, has led to an agency reappraisal. The infrastructure to support the structures, the Representative said, was not enough to “provide water, wastewater, or emergency services.”
Following a conversation with David Venturella, current acting director of ICE, Escobar said she learned the three facilities will now serve other functions.
But despite the issues related to infrastructure, the warehouses may still house a smaller contingent of detainees numbering around 1,500 people, remarked Escobar, who said the infrastructure concerns at present remain the same.
News of the changed mission for the Socorro facilities comes as the New York Times is reporting that ICE wants to unload some seven warehouses it had earlier purchased for a total of $700 million.
Those seven warehouses were part of a larger 11-warehouse acquisition in ten states made by ICE that cost upwards of $1 billion.
Plans for the seven warehouses, the newspaper is reporting, would include “either giving them to other agencies, or selling them outright.” According to other published reports, ICE appears to be moving forward with plans to use the other four warehouses for the original detention purposes.
June 22, 2026
By Garry Boulard
