Company owned by B.C. billionaire says ICE warehouse sale ‘will not be proceeding’

After days of public backlash, the Jimmy Pattison conglomerate has had a change of heart and will not be selling a Virginia warehouse to ICE.

A company owned by British Columbia billionaire Jimmy Pattison says it will not be selling a Virginia warehouse to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which planned to use the site as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

Jim Pattison Developments says in a brief statement that “the transaction to sell our industrial building in Ashland, Va., will not be proceeding.”

The turnaround was announced Friday after news of the planned sale attracted widespread criticism, including from B.C.’s attorney general.

The company said earlier this week that it listed the warehouse for sale or lease before accepting an offer to buy the property from “a U.S. government contractor.”

The firm said in a statement that it only “became aware of the ultimate owner and intended use of the building” some time later.

The 51,000-square-metre warehouse is located near a shooting range and a hotel in the small town of Ashland, with a population of just under 8,000 people.

An earlier statement from Jim Pattison Developments said the sale remained subject to approvals and closing conditions and the company intended on “complying with all applicable laws.”

The statement said the company would not normally comment on a private transaction. “However, we understand that the conversation around immigration policy and enforcement is particularly heated, and has become much more so over the past few weeks,” it said.

“We respect that this issue is deeply important to many people.”

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, also known as ICE, has drawn international condemnation for its pursuit of a mass deportation campaign targeting immigrants in the U.S.

The leader of the B.C. Green Party had planned to join protesters Friday evening outside the Vancouver offices of the Jim Pattison Group in response to the warehouse sale.

A similar demonstration opposing corporate partnerships with ICE was scheduled for the Vancouver headquarters of tech firm Hootsuite, which provides social media services to the agency.

Hootsuite CEO Irina Novoselsky said in a statement earlier this week that the company’s work with ICE “does not include tracking or surveillance of individuals.”

She said its technology makes public conversations “visible at scale,” adding the firm has a responsibility “to ensure those voices remain visible.”

A spokesperson for the company declined an interview with CTV News on Friday, saying in a statement “we respect everyone’s right to express their views peacefully and safely.”

New Democrat MP Jenny Kwan said Thursday that Canadian companies have “a responsibility to uphold human rights wherever they operate.”

The federal representative for the Vancouver East riding said in a statement that corporate partnerships with U.S. immigration officials “support the normalization of creeping authoritarianism.”

Two people have been shot and killed this month by U.S. federal agents amid the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, while thousands more have been arrested.

“Hootsuite and Jimmy Pattison Developments should critically reconsider whether partnering with agencies responsible for widespread human rights abuses aligns with the values they claim to uphold,” Kwan added.

RELATED STORIES:

• B.C. attorney general warns against doing deals with ICE, amid pending Pattison sale
• ICE wants to buy Pattison building to use for ‘holding and processing’
• Vancouver tech firm Hootsuite provides services to U.S. Homeland Security

With files from The Canadian Press