Utah governor backs ICE mega-detention center but raises transparency concerns

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox endorsed the idea of a massive new detention center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday but expressed concerns about state leaders being left in the dark.

The state has needed more ICE detention space to deal with the historic influx of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration, Cox said. But the opaque process has left him uncertain about the facility’s goals.

“When this sale went through, we were not given any notice,” Cox said. “No members of our congressional delegation were given any notice. No locals were given any notice. That’s, I think, a little frustrating for everyone.”

Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson announced last week ICE had purchased an 833,000-square-foot warehouse south of the Salt Lake City International Airport that could house up to 7,500 detainees.

The $145.4 million purchase comes after a similar $70 million exchange in Arizona last month that included a $313.4 million contract with the same company that built the “Alligator Alcatraz” facility in Florida.

Utah Sheriff Association President Tracy Glover said that shortly before she was fired, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Utah was being considered as another site to expand detention capacity.

In a call on March 2, Noem told Glover that Utah could host one of what will ultimately be six to eight “mega-facilities” serving as “regional centers” for processing deportations, Glover said in an interview with the Deseret News.

Utah law enforcement has tried to work with federal partners to increase ICE detention space for years. A lack of resources led ICE under President Joe Biden to release 67% of criminal immigrants back into Utah communities in 2023.

Previous conversations with ICE contemplated a facility that could hold a few hundred immigrants who had already been arrested for breaking state law, not a warehouse for several thousand residents who may have no criminal record.

“I don’t know if we’re intentionally being kind of left out of the loop on it as sheriffs,” Glover said. “I do think it’s a step in the right direction to some extent. Now, the scale of the project, it seems a little bit scary and a little bit alarming.”

Instead of the maxed-out ICE center in Las Vegas, the new facility would make Utah the Intermountain West’s ICE detention hub. This has the potential to speed up deportation proceedings and could increase ICE presence in the state.

Salt Lake protests new facility

The Democratic leadership of Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City immediately responded to news of the facility with opposition, saying that an ICE detention center would harm the community and did not fit Utah values.

In a letter sent Tuesday to acting ICE director Todd Lyons and Utah’s federal delegation, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenall said the large-scale detention facility was inappropriate for the location and did not have the city’s support.

Such a facility would likely strain utilities, increase traffic, create unsanitary conditions for detainees, discourage economic growth at the Utah Inland Port, decrease property tax revenue and divert public safety resources, Mendenhall said.

In a statement to KSL, ICE said the site will undergo a community impact study to ensure there is no “hardship” on local infrastructure. The facility will contribute 9,900 jobs, $1.1 billion in GDP and $238.7 million in tax revenue, the statement said.

The agency did not provide an explanation or timeline for these numbers.

This does not take into account the benefit of detaining illegal immigrants who pose a threat to Utah communities, the statement said, crediting new federal funding approved last year for the enhanced ICE operations in the state.

“This will be a very well-structured detention facility meeting our regular detention standards,” The statement said. “It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”

The Salt Lake County mayor wrote in an op-ed for the Deseret News that although detention space is important, the scale of the project would change the character of the surrounding area and conflict with Utah’s approach.

The new facility would be one of the largest in the U.S. At 7,500 beds, it would dwarf the capacity of Salt Lake County jail, which holds an average of 2,000 inmates, and the entire Utah prison system, which houses roughly 6,500 inmates.

Immigrant communities in Utah worry such a large facility will ensure a greater number of ICE agents in the streets, and poor conditions for detainees, according to Christopher Vizcardo, an immigration attorney at Trujillo Acosta Law.

“I think we’re too worried about the number of beds and not worried enough about the number of showers and bathrooms just too make sure that people are kept in a humane manner where they’re well taken care of,” Vizcardo said.

On Wednesday, three protesters, out of the roughly 500 protesters, gathered at the facility were arrested for causing $3,000 of damage by breaking windows and for spray-painting a crossed-out swastika with the words “kill all Nazis” on a nearby wall.

Impacts of illegal immigration

On Thursday, Cox asked Utahns to remember that the reason state and federal governments are having to negotiate over new detention centers is because of the border crisis permitted by Biden administration policies.

From 2021 to 2024, an estimated 10 million individuals immigrated to the U.S., according to Census Bureau data. This is the largest wave of immigration in U.S. history, The New York Times has reported, overwhelming states across the country.

Over the past few years, the number of illegal immigrants in the state of Utah has doubled from an estimated 90,000 to nearly 180,000, according to multiple surveys and asylum court data. This has impacted schools, services and safety.

There are an estimated 58,419 English as a Second Language students in Utah, with multiple school districts, like Alpine, Provo and Jordan, seeing an increase in English language learners of more than 100%.

Accompanying the surge in immigration, has been a jump in car crashes involving unlicensed drivers as total crashes have fallen. Last year unlicensed drivers accounted for 1,106 crashes in West Valley City alone — 35% of all crashes.

Unlicensed drivers are now 45% of the city’s DUI arrests and 40% of hit-and-runs. The issue is statewide: 2024 saw 262 crashes in Layton, 91 in St. George and eight highway fatalities involving unlicensed drivers.

A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted in February 2025 found that 89% of Utahns support the deportation of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. who have committed crimes and 57% support the deportation of all unauthorized immigrants.

“We have millions of people here that should not be here,” Cox said. “And that means we have to figure out a way to get them back, which means there has to be a detention facility. Now, there’s a right way to do that and a wrong way to do that.”

‘We need a facility’

The way the federal government has approached immigration law enforcement has changed drastically since President Donald Trump entered office.

In Utah, total ICE arrests increased from an average of 115 per month before Trump entered office, to around 380 per month by mid-October, driven by an increase in street arrests and arrests of unauthorized immigrants with no criminal record.

Those detained by ICE in Utah are typically held in temporary spaces rented from county jails until space opens up at the Pahrump Southern Nevada Detention Center, which has several room for several hundred detainees.

The average daily population of Utah detention facilities currently sits around 30 individuals, according to, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The average population of the Nevada center is over 450.

If Utah’s mega-facility is completed, it would replace the Nevada center as the central detention center for ICE’s Salt Lake City Field Office, according to Vizcardo. The Salt Lake City area of responsibility covers four states: Montana, Idaho, Utah and Nevada.

This change comes as recent violence in Minnesota seems to be making Utah voters more skeptical of ICE.

A February Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll found that 51% of Utahns said they somewhat or strongly oppose an ICE center in Utah. A January poll — conducted right after the shooting of Renée Good in Minnesota — found that 53% of Utah voters opposed the deportation methods being used by federal agents.

On Thursday, Cox said he did not think that a new facility would change ICE enforcement in Utah. He said the Trump administration has signaled with its new nominee for DHS secretary, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, that it is taking a “different tone or a different approach.”

“I think we need a facility. If this is the right facility, I’m not sure. I just don’t have any information that I can share,” Cox said. “The federal government can do this whether Salt Lake City likes it or not. ... But what we want is something that will last longer than a year or two and that is effective and is a good use of taxpayer dollars.”