On the morning of February 19, 2026, a stolen ambulance crashed into a Meridian, Idaho building owned by St. Luke’s Health System, Idaho’s largest health provider. According to the Idaho Press, the driver, who remains at large, attempted to start a fire by spreading gasoline or another accelerant after intentionally ramming the building. Fortunately, no injuries were reported, and quick response from local agencies scared the suspect off before the blaze could take hold.
This unusual incident brought unexpected attention to the building’s current tenant: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). St. Luke’s spokesperson Christine Myron confirmed that the health system leases office space at Portico North to DHS, the parent agency of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). However, Myron emphasized, “Our understanding, then and now, is that this location is not a processing facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The leased space is used as administrative office space for DHS, and ICE officers are not stationed there as part of this arrangement.”
St. Luke’s clarified that the building is not used to treat patients, though the health system does maintain some administrative offices in the facility. The lease, entered into last fall, is managed by the federal government’s General Services Administration (GSA). Myron added, “Our priority remains the same: ensuring every patient receives safe, respectful care whenever they come to any St. Luke’s location.” She also noted that law enforcement agencies must provide a valid warrant to enter any St. Luke’s facility.
While St. Luke’s has been transparent about its role as a landlord, federal agencies have been less forthcoming. Neither DHS nor GSA would confirm the existence of the lease or provide details about its duration. News outlet WIRED first reported the agreement, but requests for further information have gone unanswered. When pressed on the issue, a DHS spokesperson declined to confirm ICE’s office locations, instead highlighting the increasing challenges faced by ICE officers. “ICE officers are facing a coordinated campaign of violence against them, including an 8,000% increase in death threats against them and a 1,300% increase in assaults against them,” the spokesperson said. “Is it really news that when a federal agency hires more personnel that they need more space? Thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, we have an additional 12,000 ICE officers and agents on the ground across the country. That’s a 120% increase in our workforce.”
This surge in ICE personnel is part of a much larger national strategy, recently revealed in a memo from ICE that was released to the public on February 20, 2026. The memo details a sweeping, $38.3 billion plan called the "detention reengineering initiative," designed to expand detention capacity across the United States. According to Spotlight PA, the initiative involves acquiring and renovating eight large-scale detention centers and sixteen processing centers, all aiming to open by November 30, 2026. The funding comes from the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," passed by Congress to address immigration enforcement and detention needs.
Pennsylvania has become a focal point in this expansion. In Berks County, a nearly 520,000-square-foot warehouse in Upper Bern Township is slated to become a processing center for about 1,500 individuals. Meanwhile, a former Big Lots distribution center in Tremont Township, Schuylkill County, is being transformed into a mega detention center intended to house up to 7,500 people. At a recent town hall, Berks County officials confirmed the intended use of the Upper Bern facility, while Schuylkill County Commissioners learned of the Tremont center’s purpose from U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser. Meuser stated, “I share many of the same questions being raised by local officials and residents. I have been in regular communication with DHS officials and spoken with elected leaders in both Schuylkill and Berks Counties, and we will continue those discussions as we work to get clear answers.”
The ICE memo claims that each facility underwent rigorous engineering reviews to ensure adequate capacity for electricity, water, and waste exportation, and that the agency is following the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to evaluate environmental impacts. “Once these capacities were identified, an engineered solution was developed, using standard code compliant methodologies within the design of the facility,” the memo states. ICE maintains that processing facilities, unlike the larger detention centers, will not require significant upgrades to local water and sewage systems.
However, these assurances have met with skepticism from local officials and residents. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and state agency leaders wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, expressing concerns that the proposed facilities would overwhelm water and sewer resources in both Tremont and Upper Bern Townships. “If reporting about DHS’s plans is accurate, the facilities will violate legal requirements applicable to public drinking water, sewage, and water pollution. State authorities will not issue required permits that would violate these legal requirements,” the letter stated.
The memo also outlines a significant shift in how ICE detains and processes individuals. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, explained to Spotlight PA that this "reengineering" effort moves the system away from the current patchwork of privately run jails and facilities toward federally controlled warehouses built to common specifications. “This will essentially rebuild the system from scratch, moving away from that patchwork of facilities … to a system where the federal government takes control of these warehouses and builds them to common specifications and creates this new more efficient network of detention and deportation,” he said.
According to the memo, regional processing centers are intended to house an average daily population of 1,000 to 1,500 detainees for average stays of three to seven days, while large-scale detention centers would hold 7,000 to 10,000 detainees for up to 60 days. The goal is to process and remove individuals more efficiently. Keith Armstrong, an immigrants’ rights attorney at the ACLU of Pennsylvania, noted, “They also show that ICE is trying to speed up the removal process as much as possible. If some people are supposed to have due process rights and immigration proceedings — there is a faster track of court hearings for people who are in detained removal proceedings — but completing the entire process in a maximum of 67 days, as this document would indicate, would be very, very fast.”
Despite ICE’s promises to comply with both National Detention Standards and Performance Based National Detention Standards, there are persistent concerns about detainee conditions. The Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, which operates under the latter standards, has faced scrutiny following two reported deaths in 2025 and a federal complaint filed by the ACLU in 2024 alleging inhumane conditions and lack of basic medical services.
Back in Idaho, the Meridian incident has highlighted the complexity and opacity of ICE’s expanding footprint. While St. Luke’s maintains that its leased space serves only administrative purposes, the broader national context shows a rapidly changing landscape for immigration enforcement and detention. As federal agencies push forward with ambitious plans, questions about transparency, community impact, and detainee welfare remain front and center for local officials and advocates alike.
As the November 30, 2026 deadline approaches for the opening of these new facilities, communities across the country are left to grapple with what these changes will mean on the ground — for their neighborhoods, their resources, and the people who may soon pass through these rapidly expanding detention centers.