Protesters assembled in downtown Hagerstown Saturday night to oppose the establishment of an 800,000-square-foot ICE detention facility in the area.

“What we’re confronting is the engine of the immigration detention industrial complex,” said Reverend Michelle Beadle. “And it’s making a whole lot of our other neighbors conspicuously wealthy.”

“Friends, we need to name the obvious root of this evil: greed. Fantastic, gluttonous, gleeful greed.”

The Hagerstown ICE facility’s construction is currently paused pending a lawsuit.

“Yes, it is halted for now, but we know the Trump administration will stop at nothing to get their way,” said Christian Benford, a Democratic Socialist candidate for Frederick County Council.

“Liberators do not exist, Che Guevara says. The people liberate themselves!”

The organizers played solemn music and tapped a gong in memory of 58 people killed by or in the custody of immigration enforcement since January 20, 2025.

As they concluded their ceremony, the protesters against the Hagerstown ICE facility placed flowers, candles, stuffed animals, and notes to memorialize those who who killed by or in the custody of immigration enforcement.

“This is all part of a much larger system that I’m not alone in calling the immigrant detention industrial complex,” Reverend Michelle Beadle told News2Share after the rally.

“Sadly, our nation does have a history of making incredible profit off the exploitation of vulnerable populations, restricting their human and civil rights, and calling it ‘crime,’ calling it the ‘public good.'”

“Yes, it is our immigrant and refugee neighbors that are first harmed, but it is our entire society that is being harmed.”

“Back away from the property!” ICE announced to News2Share Saturday from a loudspeaker in their car as editor-in-chief Ford Fischer filmed their Hagerstown facility from outside the entrance.

The renovation of an 800,000 square foot warehouse being converted into an ICE facility adjacent to Hagerstown, Maryland is tentatively paused pending a court ruling, but ICE itself continues to guard the property.

The ruling also allows for repairs and erecting a fence to continue in the meantime.