Construction Contracts Awarded for ICE Detention Facilities in Maryland and Arizona
The federal government awarded renovation contracts Sunday for two warehouses — in Maryland and Arizona — as the government races to expand its detention network.
The federal government awarded contracts Sunday to renovate two warehouses, each designed to hold 1,500 people, into immigration detention and processing facilities in Maryland and Arizona, according to contract records. The Maryland facility is scheduled for completion by May; the Arizona contract runs through March 2027.
The Maryland contract was awarded to KVG LLC, a Gettysburg, Pa.-based defense logistics and construction firm. A separate, larger contract — valued at $313.4 million — was awarded to GardaWorld Federal Services for the renovation of an ICE-owned warehouse in Surprise, Ariz. Both were issued under WEXMAC TITUS, the Department of Defense contracting vehicle being used to rapidly build out the federal government’s detention infrastructure. The Maryland award was first reported by The Baltimore Banner.
The Maryland contract states its scope is to “procure the renovation of existing, ICE-owned permanent structure in Hagerstown, Md. to serve as a processing and detention facility and provide all necessary wraparound services for operation of the facility.” The Arizona contract uses identical language for the Surprise facility.
The GardaWorld Federal Services contract runs from March 6, 2026, through March 5, 2027, with options extending through February 2029. The Department of Homeland Security paid $70 million in January for the 418,000-square-foot Surprise property, near the intersection of Waddell and Dysart roads. GardaWorld Federal Services is a Virginia-based subsidiary of Montreal-headquartered GardaWorld, a private security firm. The subsidiary had not previously been directly contracted by ICE for detention services, according to federal procurement records, and was added to WEXMAC TITUS in September 2025.
Documents provided by the Department of Homeland Security to Gov. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and released by her office in February reveal how facilities like those in Hagerstown and Surprise fit into Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s broader detention network. Processing sites are designed as “staging locations” — holding people for an average of three to seven days before transferring them to larger detention centers holding between 7,000 and 10,000 people, where they would remain for an average of 60 days. The documents describe the network as “ICE’s long-term detention solution.”
Unlike other contractors tied to the Hagerstown facility, KVG brings an established federal track record. The company has more than a decade of contracting experience, with $120.3 million in prior awards, and has worked on construction projects for the Department of Defense in the United States and Japan. KVG has been a WEXMAC contractor since January 2025 and was added to the TITUS designation — the domestic detention-focused extension of the program — on Jan. 16, 2026, the same day the federal government recorded the deed on the Williamsport warehouse. KVG LLC did not respond to a request for comment.
The Hagerstown warehouse at 16220 Wright Road in Williamsport was purchased by the Department of Homeland Security in January for $102.4 million. The contract award comes as Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s lawsuit against the department and ICE remains pending in United States District Court in Baltimore. The suit argues the purchase violated the National Environmental Policy Act by bypassing required environmental review. The timeline suggests the federal government does not intend to pause construction while the case proceeds. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
Among other interesting things about this company, KVG LLC, it does not appear in Maryland's business registry, which tells me it is not licensed to conduct business in the state of Maryland.
All this money spent is a waste of taxpayer dollars and
puts people’s lives in danger.
Who owns these corporations contracted for this fiasco? It is a money pit that uses lives as commodities.