Project Salt Box: [March 11, 2026], “ICE ERO released a request for proposals (RFP) on SAM.gov requesting contractor support to “conduct safety and wellness checks of an estimated 100,000 unaccompanied alien children (UAC) across the US.” Labeled as the “Safety Verification Initiative,” this RFP is the latest development in a year’s long campaign by ICE to track down UAC who were encountered by DHS and subsequently released from the care and custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement. While the initiative is framed as a way to ensure the safety and well-being of this subset of children by performing wellness checks, immigrant advocates warn that it functions as yet another loophole to reinstate backdoor family separation. ICE officials have already been carrying out so‑called welfare checks nationwide with the stated goal of protecting children, but reporters and advocates have documented that these operations are being used to locate children for deportation and to target their sponsors for immigration enforcement or criminal prosecution. In practice, this means visits that are presented as “safety” checks can end with children removed from their homes and returned to federal custody, or with parents and caregivers arrested while children are left behind…”

See also Project Salt Box: The federal government has purchased a Salt Lake City warehouse for $145.4 million to house an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, property records show — completing a deal that the building’s owner had publicly and emphatically rejected less than two months ago. The deed, recorded with Salt Lake County on March 11, transfers ownership of the Gardner Logistics Center on the city’s west side from RREEF CPIF 6020 W 300 S, LLC — an entity connected to the Ritchie Group, a family-owned Utah real estate developer — to the United States Department of Homeland Security. ICE is listed as the acquiring federal agency. The sale is a stunning reversal. In January, after roughly 100 protesters gathered outside the warehouse and Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall warned the facility would violate city zoning codes, the Ritchie Group declared it had “no plans to sell or lease the property in question to the federal government.” Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson called the announcement a relief, saying “a facility that potentially houses 7,500 detainees has no place in an urban area.” At the time, a combination of public pressure and bureaucratic maneuvering appeared to have killed the deal. It had not. The property, located near Salt Lake City International Airport and surrounded by Amazon and Walmart distribution facilities, would add 7,500 beds to ICE’s national detention network — one of the single largest expansions of the agency’s capacity in years…”