A Homeland Security letter describes a privately owned office building in Round Rock, Texas, as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, the first public sign of what records suggest is a new enforcement office in the Austin suburb.
The letter, dated Sept. 11 and sent to Round Rock’s Historic Preservation Commission, titles the project “ICE ERO Round Rock Security Fence.” ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations, the ICE division that arrests, detains, and deports immigrants. A person with knowledge of ICE’s plans in the Austin area provided the letter to Project Salt Box.
Round Rock sits about 20 miles north of Austin in Williamson County, which is also home to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, an immigration detention center in Taylor. CoreCivic, a private prison company, runs the center under a contract with ICE. Taylor is about 15 miles east of the Eagles Nest Street building.
Public records do not show an existing ICE field office in Round Rock, even though the DHS correspondence refers to the building as ICE’s field office in the city. Project Salt Box found no record of an awarded lease for 3161 Eagles Nest St., and the address does not appear in the General Services Administration’s public inventory of federally owned and leased property.
The building’s owner took a step this summer that landlords take before renting to the federal government. Federal agencies cannot sign a lease with a landlord or pay it rent unless the landlord is registered in SAM.gov, the government’s system for companies that do business with it. The owner, Burke Eagles Nest II LLC, was formed in 2017 but registered for the first time June 16, less than three months before the DHS letter was sent, according to Williamson County appraisal and federal contracting records.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment, and neither did the agency’s San Antonio field office, which covers Round Rock. A property manager for Burke Real Estate Group, who is listed in federal contracting records as the owner’s government contact, also did not respond.
Under the plan, ICE would install about 1,015 feet of new fencing to create a secure parking area, along with two security gates equipped with cameras and card readers. The letter says all work would stay within the property line.
The letter is part of a review required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. The law requires federal agencies to consider how their projects could affect historic buildings, archaeological sites, and places of cultural importance to Native American tribes before the work begins.
As part of the review, agencies must consult with state historic preservation officials, local governments, and tribes. Because those parties must be notified, the filings can reveal federal projects before they are announced.
Gabrielle Fernandez, an environmental protection specialist with DHS, wrote that the building and seven nearby properties were built around 2009 or later and are not historic. She also wrote that past construction had already heavily disturbed the ground. ICE concluded that the project would not affect any historic properties.
Fernandez wrote similar Section 106 letters earlier this year for warehouses the department bought for ICE, including ones in San Antonio, Texas, and Williamsport, Md., according to public records and court filings. A federal judge has barred work at the Williamsport warehouse until ICE completes a full environmental review, and ICE agreed in court to pause conversion work at several other warehouses while the agency completes a new environmental assessment.
ICE invited the Texas Historical Commission, the Round Rock commission, and six federally recognized tribes to comment. The tribes are the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, the Comanche Nation, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, the Delaware Nation, the Tonkawa Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes. The letter said ICE had received no comments as of Sept. 11 and gave the parties 30 days to respond.
Project Salt Box has previously reported on federal lease searches tied to ICE office expansion in San Antonio and in Newburgh, N.Y.
So who are the actual owners of the properties and who will be renting them?