The federal government and Indiana officials are building a massive new ICE detention center with 1,000 beds at the Miami Correctional Center — and they’re calling it the “Speedway Slammer.” But what they’re trying to brand as tough-on-immigration policy is really something far more dangerous: a large-scale incarceration site for people who haven’t been convicted of crimes.

Modeled after Florida’s controversial “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Speedway Slammer is being built with money from a new federal reconciliation bill and will be used to hold people flagged through ICE’s 287(g) program — which deputizes local law enforcement to act as federal immigration agents. Civil rights organizations have long warned that this program increases racial profiling, tears families apart, and leads to the detention of longtime residents with no criminal records.

Now, Indiana is being turned into a pipeline for deportation. And we’re doing it with no transparency, no oversight, and no meaningful input from the communities that will be most impacted.

Governor Mike Braun and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem say this facility will help remove “the worst of the worst,” but that’s not how the 287(g) program works in practice. People pulled over for traffic stops, routine ID checks, or nonviolent infractions have routinely been detained, even when they’ve lived here for years and have children who are U.S. citizens.

Meanwhile, there are growing concerns about detention conditions at similar sites. Florida’s facility has already faced backlash for extreme heat, storm exposure, and being built on hazardous land in the Everglades. There’s every reason to believe Indiana’s facility — a converted prison — could replicate those failures.

We are calling on the Indiana Department of Correction, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Biden administration to immediately halt construction of the Speedway Slammer and hold public hearings on the use of state resources and federal dollars for immigrant detention.

Indiana shouldn’t be in the business of branding mass incarceration. Add your name if you believe our communities deserve safety, not slogans — and that we should stop this facility before it opens.