KANSAS CITY, Mo. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and officials with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were spotted outside a south Kansas City warehouse on Thursday morning, just days after it was reported that a “mega” detention center may be coming to the metro.

On Wednesday, FOX4 was informed that DHS and ICE had plans to scout a vacant warehouse on the Missouri side of Kansas City as a potential location for a new immigration detention facility.

The warehouse, listed in property records as the “I-49 Industrial Center,” is located near 149th Street and Botts Road and is less than a mile away from Kansas City’s National Nuclear Security Administration, managed and operated by Honeywell FM&T.

It was later discovered that the occupant was Jackson County Legislator Manuel Abarca IV.

The Kansas City leader shared a video on X Thursday morning, stating he had been informed that DHS and ICE were touring a “mega detention facility” in south Kansas City and “decided to stop by.”

The one-minute video shows Abarca holding identification against the window and telling ICE agents to “go ahead” and “call the police” after he was threatened with arrest for “trespassing.”

Abarca described the events that led up to the interaction in the post, stating his truck had been “swarmed” by the agents after he arrived at the “taxpayer subsidized facility.”

He added that after they threatened him with arrest, agents blocked the front and rear of his truck. Abarca added that he refused to get out of his truck until a supervisor came over.

According to the elected official, the agents confirmed off-camera that the building, along with others in the area, is in the running for a 7,500-bed detention facility.

He concluded his post with: “Local Electeds must step up, and engage. We cannot sit ideally by and let things happen in our community,” Abarca wrote. “Today, I put my and my families security on the line. What are YOU willing to sacrifice for democracy in America?”

Property records describe the warehouse as being a vacant, 920,400-square-foot industrial facility. It sits within a 10-mile radius of approximately 440,550 metro residents and 180,580 households. According to the documents, the records were updated as early as Wednesday.

Reports of ICE and DHS at the warehouse came two days after local leaders and politicians issued statements condemning rumors of a proposed detention facility in Kansas City, Missouri.

On Tuesday, long-time U.S. representative Emanuel Cleaver, II, informed residents that he had sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE Acting Director Tom Lyons, raising concerns about a rumored multi-million-dollar contract between the federal agencies and a Holton, Kansas-based contracting company, KPB Services LLC.

On Nov. 28, 2025, KPB was awarded a $29.9 million no-bid contract by the DHS and ICE, according to a public database tracking U.S. government contracts.

The records state that the contracting company, which is owned and operated by the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, would be responsible for “due diligence services and concept design for processing centers and mega centers throughout the United States.”

In response to this contract, as well as a December 2025 report from the Washington Post detailing Kansas City as a potential location for one of seven new detention centers across the U.S., Cleaver said he was concerned about the recent deal with KPB, as the company has no prior affiliation or contract with a government agency.

He added that he fears a lack of transparency from KPB and that it may not meet the legal and safety requirements necessary to operate under a large-scale federal contract.

Cleaver also criticized the Trump administration, stating it has “fractured communities” through its ongoing ICE raids and deportation efforts, further emphasizing his distaste that Kansas City could have any association with the standing administration’s immigration processes.

“While we believe strongly in an orderly immigration system, Kansas Citians and I do not want to see the stench of these extreme mass deportation policies centralized in Kansas City,” he said.

“No human deserves to be rounded up as cattle, shipped across the country, imprisoned in warehouses, and stripped of their dignity. The proposed plan will degrade our society, divide our communities, waste taxpayer dollars, and stress the civility of our institutions to the point of fracture.”

The local representative’s statements were backed by Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, who said on Tuesday that his office is “working to verify” the reports of a potential detention center in the metro, and that he “stands in agreement with the words of Congressman Emanuel Cleaver that such a facility would be a stain on Kansas City.” 

Following Thursday’s spotting of ICE and DHS at the south Kansas City warehouse, Cleaver and Lucas took to social media to address the immigration enforcement update and further emphasize their previous stances.

“Wherever ICE goes, chaos is sure to follow,” Cleaver wrote on X. “Kansas City is strongly opposed to opening a mega detention center in our community. That funding would be better spent on support for local law enforcement and other public safety initiatives.”

Lucas agreed, stating, “…we will work to ensure we see no such facility anywhere in our region on either side. Warehousing 10,000 people in an industrial factory is not the move of enlightened or humane societies.”

FOX4 has reached out to ICE, DHS and the owner of the warehouse for comment, but has not received a response.