Michael Wriston, of Project Salt Box, Has Appeared on Numerous Occasions on Cable Evening News This Year.
This Newly Revised Paperback is a Very Disturbing Account of :how the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States” by a College Professor Reece Jones.
On one site of West Sweetwater Avenue in Surprise, Arizona, a community stores hundreds of thousands of pounds of hazardous chemicals, among them compressed gases that turn into a toxic, corrosive cloud if they escape. On the other side, the federal government is preparing to hold as many as 2,000 immigration detainees in a converted warehouse — people who, in an emergeny, could not let themselves out according to a report issued on June 1, 2026 by Michael Wriston, of the nonprofit publication Project Salt Box (PSB). This is a publication that monitors the activity of ICE nationwide. What follows is an excerpt from a much longer document on a detention situation in Surprise, Arizona.
Mr. Wriston’s report continues: “The fire department responsible for both sides of the street says no one has asked it how that would work. In a written response on June 1, the fire marshal of the Surprise Fire-Medical Department, Steven D. Faracias, said his department had never been given a plan for how the detention center would handle a chemicall accident across the street. Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement, nor the private contractor hired to run the facility had contacted the department about emergency planning or the chemical site next door. Asked whether any of them had been in touch, Faraias wrote: “Not at this time.”
The chemical faciity, run by the Rinchen Company, has operated at 13255 W. Sweetwater Avenue since early 2024, according to state hazardous materials filigs reviewed by PSB. The filings identify Surprise Fire-Medical as the responding fire department and lists dozens of hazardous substances on site, including chlorine, ammonia, fluoride and large amounts of hydrogen chloride — a gas that becomes a choking, corrosive cloud when it is released.
In recently-posted job advertisements for the Surprise site, GardaWorld Federal Services – the company ICE contracated to fit-out and operate the facility — warns that “employees may be exposed o exreme cold or hot weather conditions, fumes, or airborne particles, toxic or caustic chemicals, and loud noise.”
A general emergency plan already exists for the Rinchem facility, Faracias said, and his department has reviewedit. But that plan covers the chemical company alone. The detention center, he said,” would prepareits own general emergency or evaucation pan” – a separate document, not yet written, that the operator would produce on its own.
Asked what it would take to protect people who canno evacuate themselves if an accident occurred, Faracias said his department would coordinate with the facility’s managers at the time. “No such conversation has taken place at this time,” he wrote. He said the department is responsible for emergency planning in the area and that the work is “ongoing.”
This publication is committed to transparency and accouontability regarding the Department of Homeland Security’s expanding footprint. We welcome iformation, documents and data from sources with firsthand knowledge of agency contracts and capability. To better protect your idetity, do not contact us from a work-issued device or network. We seek information of public interest, but we do not want and cannot accept, classisfied information.
For more information on the work of Project Salt Box, please visit post herein dated June 7, 2026.