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HUTCHINS, TX
Modern warehouses are built for Prime Week sales, not people. Alexa doesn’t need warmth when a North Texas winter freeze hits, and Kindles don’t take bathroom breaks. 1As such, these logistics hubs aren’t easily converted into residences for humans who eat, sleep, bathe and await their forced removal from the United States. Yet, warehouse conversions are at the center of a $38 billion Department of Homeland Security plan to expand President Trump’s mass deportation plans.
Sitting on the other side of a planned detention center deal is industrial warehouse tycoon Ed Roski, Jr. The Majestic Realty founder and owner of a one million square foot warehouse in Hutchins, a small suburb outside of Dallas that the town valued at $80 million, is more familiar than you or me with the purpose of a logistics hub. Roski’s great success in warehouse landlording enabled him to eventually purchase minority stakes in the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings, a connection that Jacobin first noted.
Majestic Realty, who also helped develop the Crypto.com Center, was set to sell the warehouse until pulling out of sale talks on Monday, saying in a statement that it “has not and will not enter into any agreement for the purchase or lease of any building to the Department of Homeland Security for use as a detention facility.” Hutchins locals concerned with the facility and its impact on the town credited the sudden reversal to significant activism from local clergy and the opposition from its mayor, Mario Vasquez.
But Roski wasn’t the only NBA stakeholder warehouse linked to eventual migrant detention centers. eyeblack identified four NBA teams — the Atlanta Hawks, Sacramento Kings, Charlotte Hornets, and Minnesota Timberwolves — with minority ownership directly linked to profiting from the federal government’s ICE-run mega jail shopping spree.
Do you know of any people engaged in discussions with buying, selling or leasing property to DHS/ICE? Using a non-work device, you can call or message me securely on Signal Messenger at 646-481-0859. Or, shoot us an email at [email protected].
Blue Owl Capital, which partnered with Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez in their Timberwolves acquisition, has $1.1 billion in assets spread across those four teams in 20252, a 22% increase from the previous year. About $500 million of its sports franchise portfolio is expected to generate income from the fund. However, like many asset management firms, its business interests are diverse enough to dip its toes into the mega jail trade. In February, a fund managed by Blue Owl Capital sold a 1.3 million sq foot vacant warehouse in Tremont, PA to DHS for nearly $120 million.
“We know nothing about it,” wrote an NBA spokesman in response to eyeblack’s questions about Blue Owl Capital’s warehouse sale to DHS. Representatives from four NBA teams and Blue Owl Capital did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement strategy has set aside $38 billion towards acquiring industrial facilities regularly worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Plenty of taxpayer cash to burn on mass jailing. Even more now that deals in Hutchins, Kansas City, and Mississippi falling through. Barring a dramatic change in plans, expect DHS and pro sports ownership groups to be increasingly intertwined. Even if said deals passively facilitate the creation of what Andrea Pitzer argues are modern concentration camps.3