Maryland Delegation Members Push Back on ICE Plans for Warehouse Detention in Washington County

Maryland Reps. April McClain Delaney and Kweisi Mfume, with other members of the state’s congressional delegation, publicly opposed ICE’s plan to establish a warehouse-based detention facility in Washington County, Maryland, through a congressional letter and a public event featuring constituent testimony.

This is the layer of resistance the warehouse program is hardest for. Washington County is where this corpus records DHS purchasing a Fundrise-held Williamsport warehouse in January 2026 and awarding KVG LLC a $113 million renovation contract in March. The federal government owns the site and holds the contract. County zoning has no purchase on a federally owned property, which is precisely the condition the reengineering initiative was built around — this timeline recorded the same logic operating at Batavia, where ICE said in writing that it was building “on federal property” because state law had closed the county channel.

What is left when zoning cannot reach is the delegation: members of Congress who control appropriations and oversight rather than permits. A letter and a public hearing are weaker instruments than a denied rezoning in the short run, and they are the only ones aimed at the level where the decision actually sits.

Note the same county appears in this timeline for a data-center moratorium it adopted in June 2026 — an instrument it could use, against a private developer who needed local approval, three months before facing a federal project it cannot zone at all. Washington County is a compact illustration of where local authority binds and where it stops.

Sourcing note. The delegation’s opposition, the letter, and the constituent event are from the members’ own House press releases — primary in that they are the offices’ own statements of their position, but not independent reporting, and they are the only sources here. The September 1 date is approximate: the press releases as captured carry no publication date, and it should be pinned before being cited. The “1,500-bed” capacity figure that appeared in the capture ledger is not carried — the ledger’s own fact-check flagged it as drawn from broader search context rather than these releases, and the per-facility capacity of this specific site is not established. The letter’s text, its recipients, its signatories beyond the two named members, and Washington County’s own government position are all unverified here; the full releases were not read, and the county’s posture — supportive, opposed, or silent — is the material gap. No tier-1 outlet covering this was found in this pass.