Northwest Valley Indivisible has formally demanded that the City of Surprise call for a halt to all construction and interior buildout of the ICE Processing Facility at 13290 West Sweetwater Avenue pending resolution of what we believe are serious and documented emergency planning gaps.
Our demand letter, addressed to Mayor Kevin Sartor and the full City Council and copied to Arizona’s congressional delegation, both U.S. Senators, the Arizona Attorney General and Governor, the EPA, ADEQ, and the Maricopa County Local Emergency Planning Committee, centers on a straightforward public safety question: how can this facility be built out when no one knows what it needs to be?
Here’s the core issue. Directly across from the ICE Processing Facility sits Rinchem CSC 45, a chemical storage operation regulated under the federal Risk Management Program. Rinchem is required by the EPA to maintain a current Risk Management Plan that includes an Offsite Consequence Analysis — a model of who is at risk in a worst-case chemical release scenario. A phone call to the EPA confirmed that the plan was filed before the ICE facility was purchased. Rinchem almost certainly had no advance notice of the facility’s purchase or intended use, and has had no opportunity to update its plan to account for thousands of detainees and staff now projected to occupy the building directly across the street.
That matters for reasons that go far beyond a paperwork filing. The Maricopa County emergency response plan is built on RMP data. If the RMP is inaccurate, the county’s evacuation and notification protocols for this corridor may be inaccurate. The City’s own emergency management planning is compromised. And critically — no one can yet specify what shelter-in-place infrastructure the ICE facility itself must have, because that depends on an accurate hazard model that doesn’t yet exist.
This last point is the one that keeps us up at night. People held in immigration detention cannot self-evacuate. They are legally in custody. In a chemical release event, the facility itself is the emergency response. That means the building’s design — its HVAC systems, sealed rooms, alarm integration — must meet shelter-in-place standards adequate for a non-evacuable population. Presumably, the buildout is proceeding right now without those specifications being established.
We have asked the City to request an immediate halt to the buildout, notify the EPA and ADEQ of the deficiency, flag the issue to the LEPC, and condition any occupancy permit on demonstrated shelter-in-place compliance. We have requested a public response by April 9, and we are asking for time to address the Council directly at the April 7 regular meeting.
This is not a political demand. It is a public safety one — and it applies regardless of where anyone stands on immigration policy. The residents of Surprise, and the people who would be detained at this facility, deserve a government that asks these questions and takes action before the building is occupied rather than after.
We will keep the community informed as this develops. If you want to make your voice heard, the April 7 City Council meeting is the place to be.