Washington County residents woke up to a sobering reality: 53 government vehicles have now been delivered to the DHS warehouse in Williamsport, and the caravan transporting even more vehicles is reportedly still en route.

This is no longer theoretical. It’s no longer a “proposal.” It’s no longer something happening somewhere else.

It’s happening here.

For weeks, our community has demanded transparency about the massive ICE detention and operations facility at 10900 Hopewell Road. We asked basic questions. We requested public process. We organized peacefully. We launched a petition. We showed up at Board of County Commissioners meetings. We made it clear that this project will fundamentally change Hagerstown and Washington County.

And while residents were still being told to “wait for more information,” truckloads of federal enforcement vehicles were quietly rolling in.

Fifty-three vehicles.

That’s not a placeholder. That’s not a “maybe.” That is operational infrastructure being deployed on the ground in our community.

And as sources tell us, the DHS caravan is not finished.

"Government vehicles are already pulling into the DHS warehouse while our community is still being denied straight answers", says Patrick Dattilio, an organizer with Hagerstown Rapid Response. "That tells you everything - this was never about transparency, it was about pushing this operation forward before residents could stop it.”

This is exactly why we have been sounding the alarm. The speed and scale of this deployment suggest that federal enforcement operations are ramping up quickly — far beyond what many local residents were led to believe. Every new vehicle that pulls into that warehouse underscores what we’ve been saying from the start: this is not a minor administrative use of an empty building. This is the build-out of a major enforcement hub.

We don’t want ICE in Hagerstown, Williamsport, or anywhere in Washington County.

We don’t want our community transformed into a staging ground for large-scale detention and deportation operations.

We don’t want decisions of this magnitude pushed forward without meaningful public input, transparency, and accountability.

“When federal enforcement vehicles begin lining the warehouse lot, it sends a clear message about what’s taking shape in our community", says Claire Connor, an organizer with Hagerstown Rapid Response. "We refuse to let ICE quietly plant roots in Washington County without transparency, without accountability, and without the community’s consent - and we will continue organizing until every decision made in our name is brought into the light.”

“You can’t tell a community this is just a warehouse when federal vehicles are rolling in and staging on site. That’s not economic development - that’s the expansion of a detention operation," says Kate R. of Washington County Indivisible. "Washington County deserves honesty, and we deserve the right to decide what kind of future we’re building here.”

The arrival of these vehicles makes one thing crystal clear: if residents do not continue to speak up, this facility will become fully operational before most people even realize what has happened.

That’s why this petition matters.

That’s why every signature matters.

If you have already signed, now is the moment to share it again. Text it to five friends. Post it to your social feeds. Send it to local journalists. Forward it to your neighborhood group chat. We need this story to spread as quickly as those vehicles arrived.

We demanded transparency before.

Now we demand accountability.

Washington County deserves leadership that listens to its residents — not one that stands by while 53 federal vehicles roll into a secretive warehouse and calls it business as usual.

Sign. Share. Show up.

We are not done.