Frustrated by inaction on ICE warehouse, activists move to dissolve Surprise altogether

Frustrated by a city council that has refused to oppose the opening of an immigration detention center, community activists in Surprise are hoping residents will agree to disincorporate the city, stripping away the council’s power. 

“If the city’s elected and professional leadership cannot stand up, will not stand up, will not take a stand to even meet with their constituents to discuss critical issues of safety and security, then maybe this city doesn’t deserve to have its own independent control,” said Jeremy Helfgot, a lobbyist and advocate for progressive organizations, who filed the petition. 

Dissolving the city would place it under the control of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which activists believe will be more amenable to local calls to act against the federal plan. In January, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security purchased a 418,400 foot warehouse in the northwest Phoenix suburb and federal officials later confirmed it would be retrofitted to house up to 1,500 immigrants. 

A change in leadership at the federal agency earlier this year saw shifts in policy, with a short-lived stop work order issued and then rescinded and a decrease in the facility’s capacity to 542. Gardaworld Federal, the private security company hired to oversee the project, has since published job postings for several full-time staff positions. 

State leaders have moved to block the facility from opening after city leaders opted not to. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in April, arguing that federal law prohibits the warehouse from being converted into a detention center because of its location across the street from a hazardous chemical storage facility. 

On Tuesday afternoon, at the Surprise City Council’s last meeting before it takes a summer break, opponents of the ICE warehouse facility said disincorporating Surprise was the only way to enact change. Helfgot said that voters have lost trust in the current and future ability of city leaders to take a stand. Helfgot doesn’t live in the city, but has been active in ongoing protests of the warehouse facility.

“The people of this city want leadership that will protect their safety, their security and their wellbeing, and the current leadership isn’t,” he said. “And I think there’s a lack of confidence that anyone who replaces them won’t do more of the same at this point.”

Three of the council’s six nonpartisan seats are up for election this year, but with incumbents running for reelection and only one of them facing a primary challenge, it’s likely that the makeup will remain the same. 

For the petition to be successful, it will need to garner signatures from at least two-thirds of Surprise voters in six months. Activists estimate that figure is around 70,000. The city is home to nearly 173,000 people. 

But first the Maricopa Board of Supervisors must approve the petition’s language. The document filed with the board emphasizes the “inability of the City of Surprise’s elected and professional leadership to properly protect the safety and security of our residents” as the main impetus behind requesting the board to take over. If the petition is successful, the board may decide to disincorporate the city or hold an election to give voters a chance to weigh in. 

Helfgot said he believes the signature threshold is attainable, pointing out that hundreds of people have spoken out against the federal plan at city council meetings and local protests in the past several months. At one council meeting in February, more than 1,000 people filled the hearing room and demonstrated outside. Still, Helfgot acknowledged that the task will be difficult, and confirmed that funding sources and signature gathering plans have yet to be secured. 

“It is an uphill climb,” he said. “We know it’s going to require a lot of work. But it is worth the effort to protect this community if its leaders won’t protect it.”

Brittany Bishop, who grew up in Surprise and has been one of the most involved in organizing protests against the ICE facility, said that the petition, unlike the warehouse, represents what the city wants. She warned that allowing ICE to go forward with its plans would reflect negatively on the city and said that the council’s unwillingness to oppose those plans conflicts with what voters in the area are asking for. 

“If we let this detention center open, Surprise will forever be known as a city with a human warehouse that holds people against their will,” she said. “The mayor of Surprise is silent on this matter. He is not concerned like the people of Surprise are about the multitudes of issues ICE presents.” 

Mayor Kevin Sartor has maintained that taking action against federal officials would be the wrong decision, because he believes the city has no legal grounds to do so. In March, Sartor and four other city officials met with DHS to request a reimbursement of city revenue lost because of the warehouse facility and an agreement that enforcement actions won’t spill over into nearby schools. The warehouse lies just a mile away from a public high school whose student body is over 60% Hispanic.

Erika Andiola, with the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, which advocates on behalf of day laborers targeted by federal immigration agents, said it was past time for the city to push back on the warehouse facility. 

Andiola, who erected a small fenced pen just outside the city council chambers with a dummy covered in a foil blanket to represent the immigrants held in detention facilities, said that allowing the Surprise facility to open would mean greenlighting new human rights violations. She shared the story of one man, nicknamed Memo, who was detained in Gilbert and has been held for nine months in an ICE detention center, despite living in the country for more than two decades and a lack of a criminal background. 

“Now, his children who are citizens go visit him at the detention center every weekend to be able to see him. A child who is this small,” she said, gesturing with her hands as her voice broke. “Only five years old, has to go and see his dad in a detention center because he’s an immigrant. That’s exactly the type of stories we’re going to see in Surprise, Arizona, if the city council doesn’t stand up to the Trump administration.” 

Minutes later, during the city’s last council meeting, City Manager Andrea Davis told the packed hearing room that the warehouse facility is still in the planning phase and city officials have yet to receive significant updates. She noted that the city is working with U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, who represents Surprise and has called on DHS to respond to local concerns about the detention center, and U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly to create a website that can connect residents with federal officials to voice their concerns. 

“Putting residents in contact with the federal officials, since it is a federal matter, making sure they get that information from them,” she said.