Feds officially acknowledge Utah immigrant detention center plans have been abandoned

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Federal officials acknowledge in a new court filing that they have abandoned plans for a Salt Lake City detention center.
The facility will be designated as excess property to be sold, according to the filing in a federal lawsuit.
A report in June indicated the plans had been abandoned, but federal officials at the time didn't directly address the question.

SALT LAKE CITY — As has been presumed since June, federal officials have abandoned their plans to build a new immigration detention center in Salt Lake City, according to a federal court filing Wednesday.

In the joint filing by Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County and U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials in the federal lawsuit, the sides acknowledge as much.

"On July 17, 2026, defendants, through counsel, informed plaintiffs that they no longer intend to convert the Salt Lake warehouse into an immigration detention facility and instead intend to designate the Salt Lake facility as excess property for disposition by the General Services Administration ('GSA)," reads the filing. The document was filed as part of the litigants' efforts to get the judge to stay the case, or temporarily pause it.

Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, the plaintiffs, filed suit in U.S. District Court on June 8 against U.S. Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin and other immigration officials, the defendants, to stop the plans. The Salt Lake city and county officials had charged that federal officials didn't follow proper federal procedures in designating the proposed site at 6020 W. 300 South as a detention center.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, purchased the empty warehouse on 300 South for $145.44 million earlier this year for conversion into an immigrant detention center, part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. The plans sparked an uproar among immigrant advocates. Then news emerged late in June in a New York Times report that federal officials planned to offload the Salt Lake City site and abandon plans to convert the warehouse into an immigrant detention center.

At the time, DHS didn't directly say the plans in Utah had been abandoned, but hinted at it. "DHS is moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners," the agency said.

This story will be updated. To be notified about updates, please click Follow This Story below on the KSL app.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.