DHS Sends Second Letter Continuing Section 106 Consultation on Williamsport ICE Warehouse After Resident's Objection Prompted Maryland Historical Trust to Reopen Review

Opening paragraph

A second DHS letter, dated March 19, 2026 and received by the Washington County Historic District Commission, reopened Section 106 consultation on the Williamsport ICE warehouse — five weeks after a Hagerstown resident’s formal objection led the Maryland Historical Trust to reopen its own review of DHS’s January 14, 2026 “No Historic Properties Affected” finding (see 2026-01-14–dhs-williamsport-section-106-same-day-review). Washington County’s own March 27, 2026 press release states the letter “was provided to continue consultation regarding this undertaking subject to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.”

What Happened / Key Facts

Per the county’s release, the March 19 letter described specific, granular site-improvement plans — parking, fencing, lighting, landscaping, utilities, drainage, a prefabricated guard shack, holding and processing spaces, and construction disturbances for utility and security work — at a level of detail the January 14 letter’s own reported contents did not include. The letter indicated ICE would “be reaching out in the near future to schedule a consulting meeting,” and gave an ICE environmental-staff email address for correspondence — signaling that DHS/ICE was treating the matter as an active, continuing consultation rather than a closed determination.

This sits between two documented milestones: the February 3, 2026 objection to Maryland Historical Trust (Project Salt Box, per the objector’s filing obtained by that outlet) that argued DHS had used an incorrect address (10900 Hopewell Road, versus the deed address of 16220 Wright Road) to process its January 14 review, and DHS’s subsequent May 5, 2026 letter (reported by the county on May 12, 2026) stating that “ICE has received a request for additional information from one tribe as part of this undertaking” under Section 106, and that ICE was awaiting final design information from its contractor before re-engaging that tribe and other consulting parties. The May 5 letter also states DHS had separately determined, under NEPA, that the project’s scope “warrants the development of an Environmental Assessment” — the NEPA process that later produced the categorical-exclusion stack tested in wexmac-titus-categorical-exclusion-template-test and the injunction in 2026-04-15–judge-halts-williamsport-ice-construction-nepa.

Why This Event Matters

The sequence — same-day close (Jan. 14) → resident objection (Feb. 3) → Trust reopening (reported Feb. 2026) → DHS re-engagement letter (Mar. 19) → continued consultation, including a tribal request for information (through at least May 5) — shows the Section 106 process at Williamsport did not simply stay closed after its January 14 disposition. Community and tribal objection reopened it, and DHS has kept it formally open for months since. This complicates a flat “the review was bypassed” framing: the review was disposed of quickly and only reopened under outside pressure, and what happened after the reopening is a genuinely separate, still-partially-open process, distinct from the January 14 letter’s same-day close.

Broader Context

See 2026-01-14–dhs-williamsport-section-106-same-day-review for the original same-day determination this reopening responds to, and williamsport-section-106-review-bypass for the consolidated mechanism analysis across both letters.

Research Gaps

• The exact date the Maryland Historical Trust formally reopened its review is not pinned down to a specific day — Salt Box reports only “February 2026.”
• The identity of the objecting tribe referenced in the May 5, 2026 DHS letter is not named in any source reviewed.
• Whether DHS/ICE has issued any further Section 106 determination since May 5, 2026 was not checked past that date in this pass — a Hagerstown Rapid Response community timeline (tier 3, no named byline) separately and confusingly states a “Section 106 historic preservation review formally begins” in June 2026, which appears inconsistent with the January–May record documented here and is flagged, not adopted, in the mechanism note.
• The March 19, 2026 letter’s full text was not independently retrieved; findings rest on the county’s own March 27, 2026 press release quoting and paraphrasing it (tier 1).

Related Entries

• 2026-01-14–dhs-williamsport-section-106-same-day-review
• 2026-04-15–judge-halts-williamsport-ice-construction-nepa
• wexmac-titus-categorical-exclusion-template-test
• williamsport-section-106-review-bypass