Northwest Valley Indivisible | May 20, 2026
The Surprise City Council met last night.
They did not mention the stop work order that appeared in federal contract records on April 22nd.
They did not mention the supplemental agreement DHS and GardaWorld signed on May 6th — the agreement that rescinded the stop work order and resumed work at the ICE Prison Camp while the Arizona Attorney General’s lawsuit is active in federal court.
They did not mention the $305M of the GardaWorld contract now classified under “Procurement, Construction, and Improvements.”
They did not mention the total federal investment of approximately $375 million to purchase and build out that warehouse — roughly $900 per square foot — more per square foot than a luxury home, more than a state-of-the-art hospital, more than almost any structure built in Arizona outside of semiconductor plants and data centers.
They did not mention the fact that Surprise is now home to the only proposed ICE processing center in development in the western United States — not because the site is appropriate, not because there’s no case to be made against it, but because Surprise chose not to fight even while every other city that chose to fight has gotten results.
They did not mention the chemical storage facility across the street.
They did not mention the absence of an evacuation plan for people who cannot self-evacuate.
They did not mention the active state litigation that they have refused to join.
They said nothing. About any of it.
Silence Is a Choice
The members of the Surprise City Council are not uninformed. They have legal counsel. They have staff. They have constituents who have been raising these questions at meeting after meeting for months. They have access to the same federal spending database anyone can use to track this contract. Mayor Kevin Sartor has spoken directly with DHS officials. He traveled to Washington. He held a press conference about his lines of communication with the federal government.
Last night, with $375 million in unexplained federal spending active in their city, with a secret contract modification having resumed construction two weeks after an active state lawsuit, with their constituents in the room — they chose silence.
That is not ignorance. That is a decision.
What the Record Now Shows
Mayor Kevin Sartor went on the record in April saying that fighting back would give residents “false hope” and would be “a waste of resources.” He said legal action would be fighting “a lawsuit that probably wouldn’t come to fruition.”
Since he said that, a federal judge blocked construction in Maryland. Michigan stalled its facility. Pennsylvania froze both of its sites. New Jersey paused operations. Virginia’s deal collapsed. New Hampshire’s project was abandoned.
Every one of those outcomes came to fruition. Every city that stood up got results.
Last night, the council had an opportunity to respond to that record. To explain their choices. To demand answers from DHS about the May 6th agreement. To ask publicly why a warehouse conversion in their city costs $900 per square foot. To join the call for disclosure of a contract modification that resumed construction at a legally contested site that egregiously violates city ordinances.
They said nothing.
That continued silence is now part of the permanent record of how Surprise’s elected officials responded to the most consequential federal action in this city’s history. That record will still be available in 2028, when the voters of Surprise have the opportunity to decide whether any of the men who sat quietly last night deserve to be the next mayor.
We Are Still Here
The mayor and council should not get comfortable, because we are not going away. We will continue to track every dollar of this contract in federal spending records. We will continue to publish what we find. We will continue to ask the questions the council will not ask. We will continue to do everything in our power to draw national attention to community leaders who choose to accommodate atrocity rather than resist it.
And we will continue to say, clearly and on the record, what the evidence already shows:
Surprise has the only proposed ICE processing center in development in the western United States because the city government decided not to fight. The facility is consuming $900 per square foot of taxpayer money under a secret contract modification that nobody has explained. A chemical warehouse across the street makes it legally and physically untenable. And the people elected to represent this city sat in a room last night and said nothing about any of it.