Canadian company cancels sale of Virginia warehouse to ICE

Jim Pattison Developments said on Friday that it would no longer sell a Virginia warehouse to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which had planned to use the site as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility. The warehouse was one of several planned industrial purchases by ICE and had drawn resistance after the planned sale became public in January.

Videos of federal immigration authorities fatally shooting Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota also brought new scrutiny to the government’s operations, the report said. The property belongs to Jim Pattison Developments, part of the Vancouver-based Jim Pattison Group. After the planned sale was reported, the company faced questions in Canada, including calls for a boycott from the B.C.

Green Party leader and a decision by a Canadian digital media company, Point Blank Creative, to suspend media buys with Jim Pattison Group entities; Point Blank said it had previously spent $550,000 on media placements with those businesses. On Jan. 21, the Homeland Security Department wrote to Hanover County officials that it planned to buy a 43.49-acre property in Ashland to support ICE operations and that the property might be renovated for holding and processing spaces, offices and cafeterias, VPM reported.

The Hanover County Board of Supervisors said it opposed the acquisition but had limited power to stop a federal building from opening, the report said.

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