The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Claire Connor:

We are on the outskirts of Hagerstown very close to Williamsport, Maryland, and we are standing in front of a gargantuan warehouse facility that has recently been purchased by DHS for use of detention center.

Laura Spivak:

We were recently informed actually by the Washington Post via some leak documents that an ICE facility was planned for our county. We were not informed by any of our local politicians. We were not informed by the federal government. And the community

Claire Connor:

In light of this has been pretty upset, especially in the regard that they’ve not been given any opportunity to voice opinions and voice concerns. It’s next to impossible to get ahold of really anyone in the county government, but especially the county commissioners. A warehouse is meant to be an economic hub. We are right next to the highway. This is an ideal place for commerce. Turning it into a jail and housing humans inside is … Well, it’s gross. It’s wrong. It’s unequipped to do so.

Austin Kocher:

The utilities are not at all equipped. There’s so far two bathrooms and two water fountains in this giant facility, totally not equipped to hold human beings in. Now, this warehouse is located in rural Maryland, far from Baltimore, far from Washington DC, near Hagerstown with only about 2,000 people living in the local area. This is not a place that a lot of Americans would drive by and see, but it’s a place that will have huge consequences to people who will go through these facilities and not have access to basic social services, basic legal services. And if it’s like other facilities in the country, may not have access to even basic medical care or food.

Laura Spivak:

There’s just a lot of things wrong with putting people in a facility like that, and they want to put 1,500 beds in this massive warehouse just down this street from here. Williamsport is a town of 2,000 people. Putting a warehouse of 1,500 people essentially doubles the population of this tiny little place, and nobody in Williamsport was consulted about this at all. All of our emails, all of our phone calls, all of our letters have all gone unanswered by the county commission. Nobody seems to have answers for us. They keep just throwing their hands in the air and saying there’s nothing that they can do.

Claire Connor:

We’ve been evaded at all costs and effectively gaslit by saying, “Yeah, no, we don’t know anything. We have nothing to do with it. ” That’s patently false.

Laura Spivak:

This community has come together very quickly to oppose this. We have organized several protests. We are outside the county commissioner’s building every time they have a meeting.

Local Resident 1:

We’re here at the Washington County County Commissioner’s Office protesting the purchase and expansion of the warehouse in Williamsport. They more or less gave ICE a blank check to do whatever they want out there. We feel that we are being completely left out of the process. They’re not allowing any public comment at any of the meetings.

Local Resident 2:

Who’s getting money in their pockets for this? We have a county commissioner Derek Harvey who serves in the Trump administration and he is basically absent and not around. We want to know where he’s at. And John Barr, if you’re out there and listening, at what point did you know this was coming as president of the county commissioners?

Local Resident 3:

I think it’s really important that people know that our community stands up against this facility. In addition to potential for human rights violations, there are environmental reasons why this facility should not be in the location that they’re proposing. Additionally, Washington County’s a very small county. The support that would be required from the facility is not available in this region and it would be a burden on the taxpayers. My primary goal is to avoid facilities like this throughout the country because I believe it’s a violation of due process in human rights.

Rebecca (Local Resident 4):

So I’m Rebecca. I’m a naturalized citizen. I am incredibly concerned about this warehouse going up down the road because one, I live here. Two, again, I’m a naturalized citizen. I’ve dealt with DJS all my life and they are difficult to deal with. Also, I am a historian of 20th century Europe, so I very well know what I’m looking at. And let me tell you, as a German citizen as well, the aftermath ain’t pretty. You don’t want this aftermath.

Local Resident 5:

We don’t want ice in our community. Immigrants are welcome, the biggest race is human race. We’re a melting pot, a hodgepodge and amalgamation. My mother was Angelosex and my dad is brown skinned. So to me, this is an atrocity. And at the end of the day, we don’t need ice. The immigrants are here. We have to do what we have to do, family for the best of our peers.

Local Resident 6:

This is a situation where I consider this warehouse to be a black site concentration camp. That’s the way I perceive it. And that invokes such fury and anger and sadness in me to the extent that I would come here to Hagerstown, 40 miles away in order to support what’s going on here in terms of the resistance to this. I am trying to find something to do, trying to address this, and I want to go right to the front line where it’s occurring. So that’s why I’m here.

Laura Spivak:

If we were to allow this to happen unopposed, there would definitely be a surge of ice activity here in this county. There are a lot of communities here that would then be living in fear. We would be seeing a lot of what we’ve been seeing in other parts of the country in Minneapolis and LA and Chicago where people are just getting taken off the streets and their car is left abandoned because they’ve been shoved into a warehouse in Williamsport.

Claire Connor:

We have people in our community Already who are scared to go to work, operate their businesses, scared to go out shopping, kids that are afraid to go to school. These are problems. We can’t proceed as a healthy society without solving that.

Laura Spivak:

If you really believe that ICE is going after what they say is the worst of the worst, why would you want 1,500 of them to come live in your town? I don’t believe that ICE is only going after the worst of the worst. In fact, we know statistically, most of the people that they’re detaining are not actually criminals at all. And that’s another part of it. We don’t want innocent people in our community being rounded Up and thrown in there either.

Claire Connor:

This is not something that we’re complicit with and they can try to jump through loopholes and make it happen, but we will push back as much as we can, at least until we get a say in the matter. But

Laura Spivak:

People from all over are going to be affected by this giant network of ice facility warehouses, and it really doesn’t only affect us. So if you are against this facility network that they’re trying to build, I mean, you do need to stand up for this wherever it is. So we need people talking about this. We need people speaking up about it, posting about it, sharing it. We need people writing to their senators and to their congressmen.

Claire Connor:

We’ve seen in other areas of the country where the protests and the pushback to ICE facilities have resulted in DHS backing out. So stick with the fight, but take care of yourself.

Local Resident 1:

Anything that you can do in your community to get the word out, get people active, and make sure that our voices are heard and that our immigrant brothers and sisters are protected and not being deported for no cause.

Local Resident 2:

I just encourage our community members to come out and be active. This is your taxpayer dollars that are being spent on county commissioners that are not representing us. They work for us, not the other way around.

Rebecca (Local Resident 4):

When I was a kid, I had to figure out why my grandparents didn’t do anything, and it broke my heart. And if I don’t do anything, I couldn’t live with myself. And maybe this does not think, maybe this isn’t important, but your grandkids will ask. It’s that simple. They will ask.