Mukta Joshi is part of The New York Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship.

Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, has agreed to abandon efforts to acquire a warehouse in northern Mississippi and turn it into a detention center for immigrants, according to U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker.

Wicker’s announcement came days after he had written to Noem opposing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, acquiring an industrial warehouse in Byhalia.

The Republican senator wrote on his X account Friday, “I just spoke with DHS Secretary Noem about the proposed ICE detention facility in Marshall County. I relayed to her the opposition of local elected and zoning officials as well as economic development concerns. I appreciate her for agreeing to look elsewhere.”

His office did not respond to a request for comment.

In his letter to Noem, Wicker had said he supported immigration enforcement but worried that putting a detention facility in Byhalia could overwhelm the town’s infrastructure. The warehouse would reportedly have held up to 8,500 people — more than four times the population of the town. 

The warehouse is one of nearly two dozen industrial facilities that showed up on a list of possible detention sites in a document spread online recently. Under the Trump administration, ICE has been allocated $85 billion — an unprecedented spike — making it the highest funded law enforcement agency in the country. It has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars as part of a $45 billion plan to expand detention centers.

Wicker also noted in his letter Tuesday that the warehouse was one of the few existing facilities in northern Mississippi that could draw industrial development and that it had been seen as a key site to bring “meaningful growth” to the region. Turning it into a detention facility would erase that opportunity without benefiting the community, he wrote. 

Some community members who gathered at the warehouse in mid January to oppose its conversion expressed fears that it would endanger the community. Citizens’ concerns about unlawful arrests by ICE have manifested in unprecedented demonstrations across the country, with major cities seeing tens of thousands taking to the streets in protest.

Some residents said they planned to voice their concerns before the county’s board of supervisors during their next scheduled meeting on Feb. 17. “No ICE detention center in our community!” a flyer being circulated reads. 

A spokesperson for ICE did not respond to a request for comment.