The city of Helena is doubling down on its determination that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near the regional airport does not violate city zoning codes that prohibit correctional facilities, reasoning that the federal facility is more like an administrative police station than a jail or prison intended for incarceration.
During a Monday night meeting, Helena Mayor Emily Dean reiterated the June findings of a city zoning review, which she circulated in a social media post last week, and told members of the public that, while inside Helena city limits, the federal facility was not located on city property. City attorney Rebecca Dockter emphasized the same point.
“It’s a federal facility operated by [a] federal agency and over which we have no control or jurisdiction,” Dockter said, responding to a question posted by Dean.
The city undertook a zoning review in response to a public complaint about the facility located at 2800 Skyway Drive. In a June letter explaining their findings, city staff acknowledged that the facility contains “holding rooms,” but that the building’s primary functions are as a federal enforcement and administrative operations center housing Department of Homeland Security investigations, ICE removal proceedings and Federal Aviation Administration offices.
Ultimately, the city concluded that the ICE facility does not fit Helena’s definition of a correctional facility, in part because it provides “incidental” temporary holding for immigration enforcement. Rather, city staff said the building fit the description of a “public safety facility.”
Questions about the purpose of the ICE facility have been percolating in Helena for several weeks, sparking the May complaint about the facility’s zoning classification. Last week, immigration sweeps in Bozeman resulted in at least some of roughly 100 arrested people being brought to the Helena facility for processing, according to a July 1 lawsuit filed by local nonprofit legal firm Upper Seven Law.
There, lawyers for one of the detainees said their client was held in a small room with more than a dozen other people and made to stand for more than six hours because of the limited space. The plaintiff of the lawsuit eventually spent the night in the facility with other arrested individuals, lawyers said, before being transported to the Cascade County Detention Center.
The events in Bozeman and the use of the Helena holding facility prompted some Helena residents to show up at the Monday evening commission meeting to speak out over the facility.
Before Monday night’s city meeting, a group of people gathered at the city county building, holding red signs that read “Fight to keep local governance local, and your tax dollars out of ICE.”
More than 20 people gave in-person, virtual or written public comment on the issue. Several asked that the city reconsider its March decision to rescind an immigration resolution that deterred cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents. Some commenters noted that the Helena ICE facility only makes the issue more relevant at the local level.
The original complaint about the facility’s zoning was filed by Helena resident and local attorney J. Cort Harrington Jr. The city’s determination about that complaint was dated June 3, about a month before federal agents detained people in Gallatin County and transported them to the Helena ICE facility, according to court documents.
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Harrington’s complaint raised a concern that the building’s two holding rooms, where he said federal guidance allows individuals to be held up to 72 hours, violated city code restricting correctional centers from operating within the airport zoning area.
“The ICE facility is located on property zoned ‘Airport.’ Airport zoning does not permit correctional facilities,” Harrington’s complaint stated. “As a result, the ICE facility violates Helena zoning, and the City must address this violation.”
Helena Community Development Director Christopher Brink wrote the city’s response with input from the city attorney and city manager. The city concluded that the ICE facility doesn’t violate the Airport Zoning restrictions because the city defines the facility as a public safety facility, which is permitted.
Brink’s letter clarified that, according to guidance from the city attorney, correctional facilities are defined as “prisons and jails for the detention of persons awaiting trial or sentenced as punishment for criminal offenses.”
Harrington’s original complaint argued that the ICE facility’s holding rooms served as detainment spaces, making it appropriate to define the facility as a correctional facility.
“The Helena ICE facility detains individuals in a manner identical to that of Montana detention centers,” Harrington wrote in the complaint. “Furthermore, federal courts also consider ICE hold rooms and holding facilities to be detention facilities. And ICE itself applies detention standards to hold facilities and hold rooms.”
Federal officials at the Utah regional ICE office declined to answer a list of questions from Montana Free Press about the building’s purpose and usage.
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