County Fight
Blocked
Merrimack NH — ICE Processing Center Paused After Community Opposition
Hillsborough, NH
Current status: Paused. Community opposition halted the project. The NH government released internal ICE planning documents that revealed the Detention Reengineering Initiative to the public for the first time.
Why Merrimack Matters
The Merrimack fight produced the single most important disclosure in the detention expansion story: the New Hampshire state government released internal ICE planning documents that explained the Detention Reengineering Initiative for the first time publicly. These documents revealed:
- The 34-facility plan (16 processing centers + 8 mega-centers + 10 turnkey purchases)
- The September 30, 2026 deadline
- The “reengineering” language and hub-and-spoke model
- The capacity targets (1,000-1,500 for processing centers, 7,000-10,000 for mega-centers)
The American Immigration Council’s definitive analysis of the program was based largely on these documents.
See merrimack-nh-warehouse for the facility entry.
The Fight
Community opposition paused the project. The estimated cost ($300M) and the small-town setting made it politically untenable. The facility remains in planning but is not advancing.
Sources
This research is published at The RAMM — investigative reporting on the detention pipeline.