The Maryland Attorney General’s Office and Governor Wes Moore obtained the first successful state-level NEPA preliminary injunction against a DHS warehouse-to-detention conversion. U.S. District Judge Brendan A. Hurson of the District of Maryland granted the injunction on April 15, 2026, halting retrofitting and full construction at the 825,620 sq ft warehouse at 16220 Wright Road in Williamsport, Washington County.

This is the precedent case that Roxbury NJ, Michigan, and Arizona are pleading their parallel NEPA challenges on.

The Property

• Address: 16220 Wright Road, Williamsport, Washington County, MD
• Square footage: 825,620 sq ft
• Purchase: DHS bought the warehouse on January 16, 2026 for $102.4 million
• Renovation contract: $113 million signed for warehouse conversion (KVG LLC; halted post-injunction)
• Capacity: 542 detainees per the legal filings; up to 1,500 documented as possible in court documents

What the Court Found

Hurson’s opinion concluded that “the State has shown that Defendants likely failed to comply with their obligations under NEPA” and that “Defendants do not appear to have taken a ‘hard look’ at the potential environmental consequences of their plans for the Williamsport Warehouse.” On the irreparable-harm element, the court emphasized that environmental injury “by its nature, can seldom be adequately remedied” by monetary damages and is often permanent.

The ruling characterized DHS’s NEPA failure as “a crystal-clear example of a federal agency failing to comply with the basic requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.”

Hurson on the contractual-vs-documented capacity gap: “How can you say with a straight face that four toilets is the same as with 542?”

What the Injunction Allows vs. Blocks

Blocked:

• Retrofitting the warehouse into a detention facility
• Full construction operations

Permitted to continue pending litigation:

• Security system installation
• 8-foot-high perimeter fence
• Office drywall construction (administrative offices within the warehouse)
• Fiber optic cable installation
• HVAC system repair
• Roof repairs

The carve-outs are the same pattern DHS has been requesting in the parallel state challenges: position the work as “basic maintenance and security” while preserving the agency’s argument that the larger conversion does not require full NEPA review.

The 542 / 1,500 Capacity Pattern

Per CBS Baltimore reporting on the Hurson ruling, the government’s planned capacity was 542 detainees — but court documents suggested up to 1,500 was possible. The same numerical split appears in the Roxbury NJ filings (542 official / 1,500 in earlier press coverage) and the Surprise AZ legal record (550 contractual / hundreds-to-1,500 documented). This is not a facility-specific quirk. It is documented across states as DHS’s standard approach to warehouse-conversion litigation: the legal-filing capacity systematically understates operational design.

See Contractual Capacity vs. Operational Overcrowding mechanism — to be cross-linked from cascade-research.

Environmental and Infrastructure Findings

The court relied on factual findings about local infrastructure inadequacy:

• Current sewage system insufficient for the planned detainee population
• Four existing toilets on-site, manifestly inadequate for 542 detainees
• Risk of raw sewage runoff onto neighboring properties
• Potential damage to green floater mussel habitat (state-protected species)

Key Actors

• Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown — filed federal lawsuit February 23, 2026
• Governor Wes Moore — co-plaintiff and lead political opposition
• U.S. District Judge Brendan A. Hurson — issued TRO March 11, extended March 19, granted preliminary injunction April 15
• Washington County Commissioners — passed pro-ICE proclamation February 10, 2026 (room cleared after booing)
• Sheriff Brian Albert — maintained 287(g) cooperation until the state ban forced termination
• Earthjustice / Center for Biological Diversity — amicus brief on endangered species (green floater mussel)
• Potomac Riverkeeper Network — environmental concerns on watershed impact
• Washington County Indivisible — community opposition
• MD Congressional delegation — bipartisan pushback against DHS
• DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin — replaced Noem in March; paused warehouse purchases April 1

Split Community

Unusually, this fight features a split between the county government (supportive of ICE) and the state government + community opposition:

• Commissioners voted to support DHS/ICE on February 10, 2026
• Community protesters packed the commissioners’ meeting so aggressively the room was cleared
• April 9, 2026 rally drew significant crowds despite project being paused

This is the inverse of the Roxbury NJ pattern, where an all-Republican township council and a Democratic governor and AG fought together against the federal action. In Washington County MD, the county government is structurally aligned with DHS while the state and community are opposed.

Timeline

• January 16, 2026: DHS purchases the 825,620 sq ft Williamsport warehouse for $102.4M
• February 10, 2026: Washington County Commissioners pass pro-ICE proclamation; meeting room cleared after community booing
• February 23, 2026: AG Anthony Brown files federal NEPA lawsuit on behalf of State of Maryland
• March 11, 2026: Judge Hurson issues TRO halting construction
• March 19, 2026: Hurson extends TRO
• April 1, 2026: DHS Secretary Mullin pauses all warehouse purchases under review of Noem-era contracts
• April 9, 2026: Community rally despite project pause
• April 15, 2026: Hurson grants preliminary injunction — first successful state-level NEPA challenge in the warehouse-conversion line
• April 22-26, 2026: KVG LLC stop-work order documented; DHS scaling back construction plans per Maryland Matters reporting
• May 6, 2026: Site stable; DHS construction blocked except for permitted carve-outs; New Jersey, Michigan, Arizona parallel cases all citing this precedent

What This Means for the Pattern

Hurson’s ruling is the first preliminary injunction in the line of state-AG NEPA challenges to DHS’s warehouse-conversion strategy. It establishes that:

1. State AGs have standing to challenge DHS NEPA compliance on warehouse acquisitions
2. “Categorical exclusion” arguments by DHS — that retrofitting an existing building doesn’t require full NEPA review — do not survive judicial review when the planned operations involve a 542-detainee facility on a sewage system designed for warehouse use
3. The pattern of legal-filing capacity (542) understating operational design (1,500) is observable from the documentary record and is something a federal court will consider on the irreparable-harm element

The four parallel cases (NJ, MI, AZ, plus this one as the precedent) are now all anchored by the Hurson ruling. The April 2026 ICE procurement decline (88% drop, $1.04B → $130M, per Em Knepp / Project Saltbox) is the downstream consequence: with one warehouse-conversion vehicle enjoined, DHS halted spending on similar acquisitions and pivoted to developing what Knepp’s reporting describes as a “fast-track construction vehicle” alternative.

Cross-References

• Roxbury NJ fight: /fights/roxbury-nj-lawsuit — same 542/1,500 pattern; same NEPA argument; May 12, 2026 hearing pending (Judge Jamel K. Semper, D.N.J., Civil Action 26-02884)
• Romulus MI fight: /fights/romulus-mi-warehouse — parallel pending NEPA case (Case 2:26-cv-10968-JJCG-EAS); March 24 filing; DHS submitted 500-page response April 22-23
• Surprise AZ fight: /fights/surprise-az-ice-warehouse-fight — fourth state in the cluster; AG Mayes filed Arizona v. Mullin April 24, 2026; same 550/1,500 capacity split; GardaWorld $313M contract already stopped
• Tremont PA warehouse fight: /fights/pa-schuylkill-tremont-ice-warehouse — different procedural vehicle (PA DEP orders, not NEPA litigation), but same warehouse-conversion-blocked outcome at much larger scale (7,500 beds planned at 1.3M sq ft Big Lots warehouse)
• KVG LLC industry profile: /players/kvg-llc — Williamsport contractor whose contract was stopped post-injunction
• Contractual Capacity vs. Operational Overcrowding (cascade-research mechanism, May 6, 2026): the structural finding about ICE’s contractual-capacity reporting that this case operationalizes

Sources

• Maryland Matters: Maryland sues to block unlawful immigration detention center (Feb 23, 2026)
• Washington Times: Federal judge halts ICE plans (March 11, 2026)
• Baltimore Sun: Protesters rally (April 9, 2026)
• WMAR: DHS asks judge to lift stop-work order, promises to scale back
• CBS Baltimore: Judge blocks new Maryland ICE detention facility over concerns about sewage, rushed planning (April 15, 2026) (Mike Hellgren and JT Moodee Lockman; the “four toilets” quote is sourced here)
• WYPR: Judge halts construction of ICE facility in Maryland over environmental concerns (April 15, 2026)
• Maryland Matters: Hundreds rally as judge agrees to block detention center construction (April 15, 2026)
• Maryland Matters: State says ICE’s claims “border on absurd” (April 10, 2026)
• Maryland Matters: Court orders two-week halt on construction at Williamsport detention warehouse
• Maryland Matters: Homeland Security scales back plans for Williamsport detention center — for now
• Center for Biological Diversity: Preliminary Injunction Granted Against I.C.E. Detention Center in Maryland (April 16, 2026) (mussel habitat angle)
• Slate: One State Has an Ingenious New Strategy for Blocking the Opening of an ICE Detention Warehouse (April 2026)
• The Banner: Washington County ICE facility construction limited by federal judge
• WMAR2 News: Judge blocks construction on ICE detention center in Hagerstown for now
• Hurson opinion (April 15, 2026): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.600507/gov.uscourts.mdd.600507.43.0.pdf — primary source PDF
• Em Knepp / Project Saltbox: Follow the Money — April 2026 ICE Spending (May 3, 2026) — KVG LLC stop-work order documented; 88% spending drop in April 2026 traced to litigation effects including this case