READING — The Trump administration is using a secretive, fast-tracked process fueled by $45 billion in taxpayer money to select who will run new immigration detention centers in Pennsylvania and across the country.
No contracts related to planned ICE facilities converted from warehouses in Berks and Schuylkill Counties had been published online by the federal government as of Monday morning. But that doesn’t mean the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t already made a selection behind closed doors.
Generally, the federal procurement process is “designed to be a full and open, competitive process, meaning that everybody knows what the federal contracting opportunities are, and they have an equal opportunity to compete for those contracts,” Joshua Schnell, an attorney who specializes in federal contracting law, told Spotlight PA.
That means, in many cases, the public would be able to see solicitations, requests for proposals, or other documents that identify an opportunity, as well as the criteria officials used to evaluate bids for the award.
But the contracting process for these facilities pulls from a pre-approved list of vendors, which condenses timelines and reduces transparency.
Michael Wriston, co-founder of Project Salt Box, a Baltimore-based group that tracks federal procurement, told Spotlight PA there have been three main changes that have paved the way for DHS to award contracts much faster and with less public oversight.
In July, Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” allocating ICE $45 billion. That funding is being used to fast-track the buying of warehouses to turn into detention centers through the “detention reengineering initiative.” Wriston described it as “an unprecedented amount of money.”
“So, that speeds things up, obviously, just having the money available and not having to procure it or appropriate it on a yearly basis,” he said. “They have a four-year window to spend that money, and they are spending it fast.”
The following month, the Trump administration launched an update to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, allowing DHS to award contracts without going through the normal bidding process and to cite matters of national security or operational urgency.
“What we’ve seen more frequently are indications of Homeland Security using those justifications to single-source contracts much faster,” Wriston said. “Basically, they’re throwing statements in there that are like, ‘It is absolutely urgent to the matter of national security that we single-source this and that we don’t bid for it.’ So, that’s another thing compounding it.”
Third, “which makes it much more difficult and less transparent,” is the use of WEXMAC-TITUS, “which really concerns me the most right now,” he said.
The Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract, or WEXMAC, was a Biden administration initiative that put preexisting American or foreign contractors on a military multi-award contract used to rapidly deploy logistic support to areas outside the U.S. during emergencies.
“The idea was within 72 hours of a humanitarian crisis or expeditionary response or some sort of wartime effort, the Navy could just single-source or point to a contractor that’s already been vetted, is on standby,” he said. “The idea was that these are emergent situations, that these are very fluid, and that to support it best, these contracts have to be able to respond quickly and not go through normal bidding processes.”
However, in August, WEXMAC was rewritten under the Trump administration into WEXMAC-TITUS to include the U.S. — TITUS stands for Territorial Integrity of the United States.
“It framed the United States as a war zone, in effect,” Wriston said. “And basically said that, because it is a war zone, and because of our ongoing counterterrorism, domestic homeland response operations within the United States, that the military and its federal partners should also have access to the WEXMAC vehicle.”
As of mid-February, there have been roughly 140 contractors added, with a max ceiling of $65 billion, with $38.3 billion coming from DHS, Wriston said. Those contractors included private prison operators GEO Group and CoreCivic, which already hold major ICE contracts, as well as Gettysburg-based KVG LLC. The latter was recently awarded a $113 million contract by ICE to renovate and run a facility in Maryland.
Spotlight PA has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to DHS and ICE, seeking information about solicitations and contracts awarded for facilities in both Upper Bern Township and Tremont. They were purchased for $87.4 million and $119.5 million, respectively.
When asked by Spotlight PA what companies were awarded contracts for both sites through the WEXMAC office, based in Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County, a contracting office spokesperson deferred comment to DHS.
A response from a DHS spokesperson did not answer questions about what companies were contracted to complete work, as well as when that work is slated to begin, but said, “These will be very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards. Sites will undergo community impact studies and a rigorous due diligence process to make sure there is no hardship on local utilities or infrastructure prior to purchase.”
Local and state officials say they were blindsided by ICE’s plan to convert warehouses into detention facilities in Pennsylvania. Records obtained by Spotlight PA show DHS reached out to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission shortly before the purchases were finalized to “initiate consultation” about a historic review.
The Shapiro administration says it still has not been directly contacted by the Trump administration, while officials in the counties say they participated in a call with DHS that provided few answers.
“If they would have done this the quote-unquote right way, they would have posted a notice, or essentially, they would have come to the state government, and they would have said, ‘We want to buy a warehouse in your state,’” Wriston said. “And there would have been negotiations between the locality, the county, the state about that and whether it's right for that location, and the state would be involved in the due diligence process.”
That process would include historic reviews, as well as environmental protection reviews, “to make sure that they’re not going to overload public septic systems or sewage systems, and they’re not going to completely drain reservoirs and groundwater, as they’re doing in some locations,” he said.
Since the purchases have become public, local and state officials have warned that community water, sewer, and other public services could be overwhelmed by the plans to convert these warehouses into detention centers.
One of the ways commonwealth officials could hinder federal progress, Wriston said, would be to refuse to supply water and sewer services to those buildings.
That’s what happened earlier this month.
In early March, the Department of Environmental Protection issued five administrative orders — two to DHS and three to local authorities — saying that water and sewage could not be supplied to either facility, and that those buildings could not be occupied, until DHS demonstrates compliance with federal and state environmental regulations.
“Based on what the department has learned about DHS’s plans to convert two commercial warehouses into detention centers for 9,000 people, there are serious concerns about the environmental impacts of these actions,” DEP Secretary Jessica Shirley said in a news release.
“Doubling the populations of these areas could drain drinking water sources and lead to polluted waterways from overwhelmed sewage facilities leaking raw waste into our streets and rivers. Just like anyone else, DHS needs to demonstrate its facilities comply with environmental standards.”