SALT LAKE CITY — Governor Spencer Cox reacted to the news that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is backing off plans to build a mass detention facility in Salt Lake City.
"The litigation has not been dismissed, so I can't say a lot right now except that I'm very grateful for the conversations that are happening and the decisions that are happening in that space," he told reporters during his monthly news conference on PBS Utah.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security — which oversees ICE — said in a court filing obtained by FOX 13 News on Wednesday that it was no longer going through with plans to put a detention facility in a warehouse it had purchased on Salt Lake City's west side. ICE is being sued by Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County over it.
Gov. Cox has said in the past that some kind of ICE facility would be needed in Utah (the nearest one is in Nevada) but he has called for "the right kind," expressing concern about what was originally rumored.
"Even under the Biden administration, they knew we needed a facility here," Gov. Cox said Thursday. "But it needed to be the right size and in the right place. So I know that those conversations are happening, but ... they haven't gone very far, so there's no location or place that we're aware of right now."
