UPDATE 10:30 A.M.: The City of San Antonio has filed a lawsuit over the immigration detention facility on the East Side.
In a news conference Tuesday, City Attorney Andy Segovia said the lawsuit was filed in federal court against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Tuesday morning.
A majority of the San Antonio City Council has been critical of the planned 1,500-person processing facility, which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has said could open early next year.
Segovia said the suit is to ensure compliance by DHS with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA.
Segovia said the city is requesting the federal court to do the following:
The city will also seek a temporary injunction to pause the project. If there are visible signs that work has started at the site, the city will request an emergency hearing to stop it.
Last week, City Council voted 9-2 to ask the city-owned utilities, San Antonio Water System and CPS Energy, as well as certain city departments, to assess the potential impacts of the facility.
ICE bought the 640,000 square-foot warehouse off Loop 410 for $66.1 million earlier this year.
In late August, it awarded a $17.3 million contract to GardaWorld Federal Services LLC to renovate the East Side warehouse into a processing and detention facility and provide wraparound services to operate it.
Federal contract records show the contract has since grown to $61.8 million.
Segovia said the city wrote to DHS and ICE five times beginning in February, most recently on Sept. 9, seeking information about the project. The agencies responded once, in June, promising to coordinate with the city, accept community input and share design and engineering reports before any work began.
The city said it has not heard from them since early this summer.
KSAT has reached out to DHS and ICE for comment and is awaiting to hear back.
Read also:
