Tim Vandenack covers immigration, multicultural issues and Northern Utah for KSL. He worked several years for the Standard-Examiner in Ogden and has lived and reported in Mexico, Chile and along the U.S.-Mexico border.
SALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Spencer Cox supports bringing an immigrant detention center to Utah and said his office has reached out to federal officials to collaborate on the plans."My thoughts — we need an ICE facility.
We need to get the right kind of ICE facility," he said Thursday at a press conference with Utah reporters that covered a range of topics.News emerged last week that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had bought a 24.9-acre parcel containing an 833,000-square-foot warehouse in an industrial section on the west side of Salt Lake City. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed plans to build a detention facility in the city and the news has prompted pushback and criticism from Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson and many others opposed to the plans.Cox, though, publicly addressing the issue for the first time on Thursday, said he had worked with the administration of President Joe Biden on the issue, saying, "This isn't just a partisan thing." The nearest immigration detention center is in the Las Vegas area and it's routinely full, he noted, also saying that the possibility of bringing such a facility to Utah isn't a new topic."And so we know we've needed this for a long time. We've tried to work with different presidents to get something done. We knew that they were looking at Utah," he said.The governor said his administration, Utah's delegation to Washington, D.C., and local Utah leaders weren't given any notice that a specific proposal was in the works, prompting frustration. But Cox seems to have moved past that, saying his office is in contact with federal officials about the plans, though specifics about the facility are in short supply."It's something we need to get right. We've reached out to the administration to let them know that we want to work with them on whatever that looks like," he said.Plan development, though, is "in a holding pattern right now" as leadership at the Department of Homeland Security shifts from Kristi Noem, fired earlier this month, to Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, who is in the midst of confirmation hearings for the post. Other U.S. locales where plans for ICE facilities have emerged are likewise waiting "to have these conversations" with federal officials.ICE finalized acquisition of the warehouse site on March 11, paying $145.44 million for the location. The news sparked immediate backlash and prot
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