ICE paid $145 million for the warehouse, part of the agency’s nationwide, $45 billion push to buy warehouses and convert them into immigrant detention centers.
The warehouse sits near Interstate 80 and the Salt Lake City International Airport and could hold thousands of detainees, according to a statement from Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson.
Attorney Lorina Tester is the director of the Legal Immigration Program through Holy Cross Ministries.
“People are afraid,” she said.
She has worked with immigrants for over two decades. Under President Donald Trump’s administration, Tester said even immigrants who ordinarily have some protection from deportation, such as victims of crime, have been targeted.
“It’s really unfortunate, because the whole point was to target criminals, as he [Trump] says,” Tester said. “And he’s basically just gone after people in the community who’ve really done nothing wrong and were victims of crime and cooperated with the police and did everything that they’re supposed to do.”
The Trump administration has also sought to limit other forms of protected status for people fleeing armed conflict or other dangerous conditions in their home countries.
“To find yourself here suddenly and have the law just changed – it’s like having a carpet pulled out from underneath,” she said.
Tester said immigration enforcement in the Wasatch Back has mostly consisted of “random targeting” so far. Clients have reported seeing immigration agents in parking lots, outside popular restaurants, and during traffic stops.
She believes larger raids will come.
ICE raids and mass deportations have created a chilling environment for immigrants both with and without legal permission to be in the U.S.
A 2025 survey by KFF, a health research organization, found about one in eight immigrants had limited activities like going to community events or seeking medical care in the months after Trump took office.
A third of survey respondents also said immigration crackdowns had negatively affected their health.
Mairi Leining is the CEO of the People’s Health Clinic, which serves uninsured patients in Summit and Wasatch counties, including some immigrants.
Leining said anytime immigrants are afraid of being detained, it can lead to consequences both for personal and public health.
“Statewide, nationwide, when people are living in fear of detention, they stop coming in for prenatal care; they delay taking care of a child who has a fever; they ignore chest pain,” she said.
She emphasized that immigrants keep Park City running.
“We depend on the services provided by this workforce – in fact, we’re incredibly lucky to have their help – and I think it’s really important for the community to support our neighbors who are immigrants during this time,” she said.
Tester, the Holy Cross Ministries attorney, said Utahns should pay attention to immigration crackdowns and the planned detention facility, even if high-profile ICE raids haven’t come to the Wasatch Back yet.
“They’re still taking away due process and constitutional rights,” she said.
She said Holy Cross Ministries is starting some new volunteer programs so citizens can help their immigrant neighbors. That could include accompanying people to court or visa appointments, helping them study for citizenship tests and more.
News of the planned detention center has been met with protests in Salt Lake City.
Among state leaders, reactions are mixed.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said at a press conference March 19 he wasn’t notified about the purchase beforehand. However, he supports having an ICE facility in the state and said there’s been a need for years. Immigrants arrested by ICE in the Mountain West are typically transported to a detention facility in Las Vegas.
“That facility was routinely full,” he said. “It was full during the Biden administration; it was routinely full during the Obama administration and Republican administrations as well. And so, we know we’ve needed this for a long time.”
The mayors of Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County have opposed the plans, as has Republican U.S. Sen. John Curtis.
