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Maryland watchdog group helps create national ICE oversight site

FILE - A federal agent wears an Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge in New York, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
Yuki Iwamura
/
AP
FILE - A federal agent wears an Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge in New York, June 10, 2025.

ICE oversight group Project Salt Box has gotten a lot of attention for its data-driven approach to following ICE projects.

Now, the Maryland-based organization is working with nonprofit democracy group DEFIANCE.org and an anti-authoritarian political group called the Save America Group to form GTFOICE.org.

The website is a nationwide rapid response team to block ICE detention facilities.

“Republicans and Democrats, small towns and capital cities, they don’t want their government to be operating secret prisons, and certainly not in their communities, said Steve Schmidt, the co-founder of the Save America Movement. “The GTFO Ice alert network will allow Americans to support each other and put and stop to this.

The website will use Project Salt Box’s data to identify potential ICE facilities ping people about it and connect them to organizing resources and legal guidance.

“It's a lot easier to shut down a facility before it opens than it is on the back end once it's sold and money has been put into it,” said Bretons Gurosko, a co-founder of Project Salt Box.

Project Salt Box helped expose much of the details about the potential ICE facility being built in Western Maryland.

Earlier this month, Judge Brenden Hurson granted a preliminary injunction to the state to stop ICE’s attempt to convert that 825,000 square foot warehouse into a detention center that could hold up to 1,500 people.

The injunction is based on the state’s claim that the surrounding area and its environment will suffer from irreparable harm from the renovation and operation of the warehouse, and that ICE did not conduct proper environmental assessments to understand the impact of the facility or proper remediation measures.

The injunction halts all work on the building except for some repairs to the HVAC system and the addition of some security measures like a fence to keep out vandals and cameras.

Scott is the Health Reporter for WYPR. @smaucionewypr
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