ICE has leased a downtown Columbia building. Here’s why some leaders are unhappy
After U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement signed a 10-year lease to open an office in downtown Columbia without alerting the city or local law enforcement, some city and local leaders aren’t happy.
The lease, signed in October, was first reported by WIRED. The city’s leaders and its police department have said they were not made aware of the decision by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
“We have not had any conversations with DHS regarding office space in the City of Columbia,” Jennifer Timmons, the spokesperson for the Columbia police department, told The State Wednesday.
The 10-year, $4.3 million lease is for office space at 1441 Main St. in the heart of the city.
Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said in a statement the city did not know about the lease until Feb. 10.
“We expect for our partners at federal agencies to continue to communicate and work with our local law enforcement,” Rickenmann said. The federal government was not required to inform the city of the leased space because the city doesn’t own the building, the mayor’s spokesperson Payton Lang told The State.
City Councilman Tyler Bailey, state Rep. Hamilton Grant, D-Richland, and state Sen. Tameika Isaac Devine, D-Richland were among the leaders who issued statements expressing frustration that the federal government hadn’t given city leaders or local law enforcement advanced notice of the lease.
“Generally, with our local law enforcement agencies and federal partners, there’s some collaboration or even a common courtesy and that wasn’t done here,” Bailey told The State. He intends to request more information about the plans for the office space from the federal agency, he said.
Grant said the move was made without transparency or respect for local leaders and called it “unacceptable” in a Feb. 11 statement.
“I strongly condemn the secretive approval of an ICE office lease in Columbia without notice to local officials or community stakeholders. Actions that affect public safety and community trust should never be done behind closed doors,” Devine wrote in a statement.
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 10:13 AM.
