ICE seeks 60 parking spaces in Pittsburgh amid nationwide expansion
Pittsburgh’s Public Source is an independent nonprofit newsroom serving the Pittsburgh region. Sign up for our free newsletters.
Amid a major expansion of ICE’s workforce and immigration enforcement nationwide, the agency is seeking 60 parking spaces in Pittsburgh. Federal officials have not said whether the request reflects an increase in local enforcement activity.
The Pittsburgh spaces are part of a broader search near ICE facilities in 14 cities nationwide, according to a federal procurement notice published July 21 under the title “DHS-ICE-SurgeParking.” Responses to the notice were due Aug. 7.
The notice says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is conducting market research for surface or structured parking “in the vicinity of existing or planned ICE facilities.” In Pittsburgh, the agency is seeking 60 contiguous spaces within what the notice calls the “CBD,” an acronym it does not define but can sometimes mean central business district.
There is an ICE facility in Pittsburgh’s South Side.
Pittsburgh’s Public Source asked the Department of Homeland Security what the spaces would be used for, whether they were tied to an existing or planned office and whether the request was related to plans for increased immigration enforcement in the Pittsburgh area.
DHS declined to provide details about local facilities or parking locations.
“Due to operational security concerns, ICE will not confirm office or parking locations as our officers are facing a coordinated campaign of violence against them,” a DHS spokesperson wrote, citing significant increases in death threats and assaults against ICE officers.
But the spokesperson also pointed directly to ICE’s nationwide hiring expansion in explaining the need for more space.
“Is it really news that when a federal agency hires more personnel that they need more space?” the spokesperson wrote. DHS said ICE has added 12,000 officers and agents nationally, which the department characterized as a 120% increase in its workforce.
“We’re supercharging our efforts to fulfill President Trump and the American people’s mandate to remove the worst of the worst from our country,” the spokesperson said.
Jaime Martinez, director of Frontline Dignity, said his organization has been preparing for an escalation in immigration enforcement.
“This is inevitable,” he said. “When you have $240 billion poured into a massive deportation effort, there’s going to be escalating ICE immigration enforcement activity everywhere all at once.”
Frontline Dignity is a nonprofit that coordinates a team of volunteers to respond to reported ICE detentions by documenting officer conduct and supporting detainees and their families. Since the start of Trump’s second term, 50 people have died in ICE custody, according to data tracked by UCLA.
Martinez said he’s careful not to speculate on exactly what the sought parking spaces mean for local enforcement.
“It’s like you’re reading tea leaves all the time,” he said. “Now we’re finally seeing it on a government document.”
DHS did not say whether any of those additional personnel are being assigned to Pittsburgh or what the nationwide enforcement expansion will mean for Western Pennsylvania.
Public Source followed up with DHS and ICE to ask whether the 60-space request is connected to increased staffing in Pittsburgh; whether the spaces would support an existing, expanded or planned facility; and how ICE determined that 60 spaces are needed.
Elsewhere, ICE is seeking 250 spaces in Englewood, Colo.; 249 in Boston; 150 in Philadelphia; and 100 in Tukwila, Wash., along with smaller numbers in nine other cities.
Halle Stockton can be reached at hstockton@publicsource.org.
Jamie Wiggan contributed to this reporting.
