Job platforms that claim to support fair opportunity and ethical employment should not allow recruitment into agencies and projects known for deception, environmental harm, and human rights abuses.

We, the undersigned members of Hagerstown Rapid Response and Cat Ladies for America, along with our allies across Washington County and the United States, call on Indeed.com, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, and other employment platforms to immediately stop partnering with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to list Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) job postings.

Every ICE job ad is an invitation to participate in a system of detention, surveillance, family separation, and now a locally‑opposed facility that Maryland’s highest law‑enforcement officer and the Washington County NAACP have condemned as unlawful and unsafe.

By promoting positions for ICE, these companies are enabling an agency that has consistently misled the public and inflicted harm on immigrant communities. DHS and ICE have demonstrated again and again that they are not honest actors – issuing false and debunked statements about their operations, evading oversight, and pursuing projects that endanger residents and local ecosystems.

The Background

Here in Washington County, Maryland, our community is already confronting these impacts firsthand. We are actively organizing to stop the opening of a massive ICE “warehouse” facility in Williamsport/Hagerstown, a project that would funnel our local water, sewage, and taxpayer resources into supporting an agency built on inhumanity and fear. This is not an abstract threat – it is a direct assault on our neighborhoods, infrastructure, and values.

The Washington County NAACP has now formally demanded that Anovaeon LLC, a contractor working with DHS on this project, immediately cease all recruitment and staffing efforts for the proposed DHS facility in Williamsport, Maryland. Their open letter makes clear that participation in this project directly contradicts any claim to “enhance programs and provide effective relief,” and instead ties companies to a facility that is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown.

Maryland’s Attorney General and the State of Maryland allege that DHS and ICE have acted unlawfully in siting and repurposing this warehouse by:

• Violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by purchasing the warehouse for more than $100 million while bypassing mandatory environmental reviews and public consultation.

• Violating the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by converting a commercial warehouse into a mass detention center without providing any explanation of its impact on local infrastructure.

The Washington County NAACP further documents serious design, safety, and environmental problems with this facility, including:

• The 825,000–square-foot building was designed for packages, not people, and currently contains only four toilets and two water fountains for a projected population of 1,500 individuals.

• The facility is expected to generate roughly 187,000 gallons of wastewater daily, nearly four times the capacity of the existing six‑inch lateral sewer lines, creating a virtual certainty of sewage backups and biological hazards for both detainees and staff.

• The site sits within the Potomac River watershed, and the lack of proper environmental review threatens state‑protected species and local air and water quality, directly impacting the health of Washington County residents.

The NAACP also notes that this site violates local zoning laws by allowing overnight habitation in an area not zoned for that use, and that companies recruiting for “Shelter Intake Specialists” and “Operations Coordinators” are exposing new hires to serious legal and workplace‑safety risks by failing to disclose these issues. They urge Anovaeon to invoke federal contracting provisions that allow withdrawal due to “significant change in circumstances,” given the pending state litigation and documented legal violations.

The Ask:

We are asking Indeed and all job hosts to:

• Cease all partnerships and listings for DHS and ICE, including positions connected to the Williamsport/Hagerstown warehouse facility.

• Adopt transparent content policies that reject postings from agencies and projects with records of human rights violations, environmental harm, or ongoing legal challenges for violating NEPA, APA, zoning, or workplace‑safety laws.

• Issue public statements committing to ethical employment standards aligned with community, worker, and environmental protections, and pledging not to promote jobs tied to facilities that local civil rights organizations and state authorities have declared unlawful.

Join us in defending our communities and demanding accountability from both government and corporations. When job platforms choose to profit from ICE recruitment, they are choosing to side against the residents, advocates, and civil rights leaders of Washington County who are fighting to stop this harmful project.

Together, we can send a clear message: our communities will not be complicit in cruelty or environmental destruction, and our resources – digital, environmental, and human – will not be used to sustain it.