By Edmond Ortiz
Acknowledging that they cannot keep the federal government from setting up migrant detention centers inside city limits, San Antonio’s elected leaders said March 5 they hope to impose policy and code changes to protect local residents while such structures are operational.
What is happening
City Council voted 8-2 to pass a resolution directing city staff to propose code and policy changes based on the city’s authority to regulate land use and building operations to protect public health, safety, and welfare.
The resolution is the latest effort by local officials to respond to Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s (ICE) recent acquisition of a 640,000-square-foot East Side warehouse, which ICE aims to turn into a migrant detention facility.
While many local residents have implored the city to stop the detention center from opening, and have asked police to halt collaboration with ICE, city officials are focusing on actions that are within their legal means, including possibly revamping zoning laws.
Possible city unified development code (UDC) amendments could include creating a separate, distinct zoning category for detention facilities and/or requiring minimum distances between a detention center and residential neighborhoods, schools and religious land uses.
According to the approved resolution, the city is concerned that a detention center functioning in an urban area may adversely affect its surrounding environment and public health.
Local officials also said that a detention facility is not a presently defined land use in the city’s UDC, so a code amendment is needed to ensure permissible use.
Some local officials, based on feedback from residents concerned about ICE’s continued crackdown on illegal immigration, said they prefer seeing potential code and policy changes sooner than later.
They also have suggested placing a moratorium to keep the federal government from opening the East Side detention center or similar facilities at least until the city finalizes its desired code and policy revisions.
However, local officials said the city must go through its standard, lengthy procedure for considering UDC changes, a process that could last as long as five months and include legally required newspaper notices, task force meetings, a zoning commission hearing, and finally a council meeting. Placing a moratorium, too, requires public notices and a hearing.
Even if the city were to expedite the UDC revision process, council would have to wait about 45 days until it finally receives formal recommendations vetted by zoning staff and the zoning commission.
What they are saying
District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who represents the area where the prospective ICE detention center is located, asked city staff to study the feasibility of placing a moratorium and speeding up the UDC revision process.
McKee-Rodriguez said the city is doing everything in its power to place some kind of regulation on an ICE detention facility, even though options are limited.
McKee-Rodriguez also encouraged residents critical of ICE and the city to contact and pressure their Congressional representatives to address the funding of ICE operations and president Trump administration’s approach on illegal immigration.
“There are people in our federal government that you can contact and give them these same demands because they’re causing this harm, and they’re getting off scot-free because they’re telling (constituents) ‘Contact your City Council because they’re going to be able to do something’ knowing that we won’t be able to stop them,” McKee-Rodriguez added.
Marc Whyte and Misty Spears, the council’s most conservative members, both voted “no” on the resolution. While Spears said locals should not and cannot interfere with enforcement of immigration law, Whyte said the best thing that critics of ICE can do is contact members of Congress and pressure them to enact comprehensive reform of immigration policy.
