U.S. Senator Roger Wicker has written a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, asking her to reconsider a proposed DHS plan to purchase a warehouse in Byhalia in Marshall County.
The previously unused warehouse facility occupies nearly 800,000 square feet and could hold up to 8,500 detainees.
Shamira Muhammad
Sen. Wicker asks Sec. Noem to reconsider Byhalia warehouse purchase
Byhalia resident Montravius Hall drives past the facility nearly every day.
“He's on the right side of this,” Hall said, speaking of Wicker.
In the letter, the senator indicated that constituents had voiced concerns to him about “public safety, medical capacity and economic impacts of the center.”
Last month, Hall was among those protested against the acquisition of the facility, a demonstration he and others believe coincided with a tour of ICE officials. He said he's afraid detainees could be subject to improper treatment, and doesn’t believe the facility can adequately address the essential needs of such a large number of people.
“You're driving by it and Lord knows what goes on inside of those camps,” he said.
“It's a lot of things that affects not just people on their humanity side, but as a community as a whole, you know? Because now we have to pay for this,” he said. “We literally have to pay for a concentration camp in our back yard. That's not something the neighbors want their money going towards. If anything, we want the warehouse to create jobs, not for something like this.”
Sen. Wicker wrote that although the warehouse could stimulate “job-creation, private investment and long-term economic growth,” the introduction of a detention center could stunt progress.
Jackson immigration advocate Elise Smith, who delivered a letter signed by nearly 200 constituents to Wicker’s capital city office, said she appreciated the senator's message but still felt the letter fell short.
“I'm thinking, well, what about all the various ways in which detention centers are hugely problematic in terms of lack of proper medical care, the lack of nourishing food,” she said. “They're bringing children into these detention centers. They're not taking care of them. These are awful detention centers, and he's not getting into that at all.”
ICE did not respond to MPB’s request for comment.