Massive crowd celebrates Hanover’s pushback against proposed ICE facility just north of Henrico line

Even in the frigid cold, a crowd of nearly 1,000 people packed the Hanover County Government building and overflowed outside Jan. 28, holding its collective breath while waiting for a statement from the Hanover Board of Supervisors.

Just after 6 p.m., the crowd erupted into cheers after word spread from inside the meeting room that the Hanover board had spoken out against a proposal for a new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in the county.

Hanover officials received a letter on Jan. 22 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security affirming the department’s intent to purchase property along Interstate 95, just a few miles away from the Henrico border, where ICE could detain as many as 1,500 people at a time. During their Jan. 28 meeting, Hanover supervisors said that the property was “not the right location” for an ICE facility and asked DHS to reconsider the purchase.

“A DHS facility at this property on Lakeridge Parkway is not consistent with the established land use,” said board chair Sean Davis. “While the county has no role in federal immigration policy, we are responsible for land use, budget decisions and ensuring transparency and public engagement on matters with the board’s authority.”

But the board did not come out against potential ICE facilities in other locations in the county, instead stating that it would prefer DHS to work with the county to choose a more appropriate spot.

“The board hopes that DHS will not proceed with this acquisition and sincerely hope they will look for a more suitable location for this type of operation,” a statement released by the board read. “We ask that DHS, when it picks an appropriate location, that they will work with Hanover County, or the local government in whatever area they choose, so that any future land use proposals are consistent with local land use planning processes.”

More than 170 people, many residents of Hanover or other counties in the Richmond area, signed up to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting, and hundreds more gathered outside of the meeting area to protest ICE’s proposal. The normally quiet center of the rural county was flooded with lines of cars down the roads, filled with protestors and spectators.

“A lot of people don’t want this in their backyard, no matter what their politics are,” said Marissa Sotos, who moved to Richmond from Minneapolis two years ago. “I was just visiting Minneapolis last week, and it’s heartbreaking there. There’s so much violence and injustice, and I want to do everything we can to stop that from coming here.”

“We don’t want [ICE] defiling our town with a detention center. We don’t want them bringing down property value and harming the economy. We don’t want any part of it,” said a Henrico resident who gave only his first name, Jeffrey, adding that he grew up in Hanover. “I can only imagine that it’s going to increase ICE presence here, and we want them to be as unwelcome as possible.”

Virginia residents from areas outside the Richmond region, such as Charlottesville and Norfolk, also showed up to the protest, citing the proposed facility as a “Virginia problem” rather than just a regional issue.

“I think the general sentiment is injustice for one person in one area is injustice for everyone,” said a Virginia Beach resident named Spike. “Everyone’s seeing what happened in Minnesota, and now we’re all riled up everywhere else.”

But protestors said that they were still wary about the board’s statement, which they say criticized the specific location of the proposed ICE facility rather than the nature of the facility itself.

“This is not a message against the facility, this is a message against it being in the wrong zoning area,” yelled one protestor as the crowd cheered. “If [DHS] finds another area in the county, we will be there too. It does not matter if they purchase it, we will be there too.”

‘Two big wins for Henrico tonight’

During Wednesday night’s meeting, the Hanover Bbooard also announced that HHHunt, a regional developer, had withdrawn its controversial proposal to build a data center just north of Henrico’s Wyndham neighborhood. The project had been opposed by hundreds of Hanover and Henrico residents when it was first proposed this past fall, and received a vote of denial from the Hanover Planning Commission last week.

A Hanover resident named Louis, who said he works at Henrico Schools but didn't give his last name, had been keeping an eye on both the data center case and the ICE proposal. Louis said that he was pleasantly surprised that a conservative county – Donald Trump won Hanover by 26% in 2024 – had come out against both proposals.

“I knew that one of the reasons why [DHS] would have proceeded with a detention facility here is because of the politics of this county compared to other areas in the region,” he said. 

But even Hanover, like many other areas in the Richmond region, has experienced a political shift towards the left with more people coming down from areas like Northern Virginia, Louis said.

“I’ve had family members ask me, ‘why did you even come live in this area? The Richmond area, it’s dangerous for people that look like you,’” he said. “But I think it has become more welcoming to people of all backgrounds. I've watched this happen over the last almost 20 years, and it's just gotten more welcoming as time has gone on.”

Louis said that some of the students he works with in Henrico Schools have had their parents detained by ICE, and that he wants to prevent similar situations from occurring in Hanover.

“I’ve had students who actually have been stopped and had their parents snatched out of the car with them in it,” he said. “And that’s not what I’m looking forward to dealing with in Hanover County.”

Sotos also said that she feared a major ICE facility in Hanover would prompt a larger ICE presence across the Richmond region.

“I think we would have seen a big uptick in ICE activity, and I think that that would have meant a lot more fear for immigrants as far as going to work and going to school and getting groceries,” she said. “I think it would have meant a lot more civil unrest, both from protesters and from more ICE agents in our streets.”

Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s government and education reporter. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.