More law enforcement could be coming to Columbus, and that may even include Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Ohio’s capital is one of several cities in which the General Services Administration, an independent agency which helps manage and support federal agencies and facilities, was seeking office space. Specifically, “as-is, fully-finished and furnished office space in support of administrative operations for law enforcement.”
The lease will be on a 10 year/5 firm basis.
“THE NOTICE FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICE SPACE,” posted in September, has certainly prompted chatter, both in Columbus and statewide. The Ohio House speaker affirmed the federal government’s jurisdiction, the governor sees more jobs for Ohioans, while Columbus’ mayor appears to be questioning the need.
Opportunity and Fighting Crime
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s office welcomed the GSA notice as a sign of opportunity. “Ohio has many federal workers who work here in Ohio, including numerous federal law enforcement officials. Of course we welcome more employers, including the federal government, locating more jobs here to Ohio,” Dan Tierney, DeWine’s deputy director of media relations, told The Daily Signal.
The mayor’s office seemed to have a bit of a different take, however. “Columbus is the safest it’s ever been, with homicides at a more than 20-year low even as the city has grown,” NBC4 quoted Jennifer Fening, deputy chief of staff for Mayor Andrew Ginther, as saying. “The city works consistently with state and federal law enforcement to take dangerous criminals off our streets.” The Daily Signal also reached out to the mayor’s office, though did not hear back.
Federal Jurisdiction
Ohio Speaker Matt Huffman, a Republican who represents Allen County, offered “that there are things that are strictly within the federal purview.” Leasing office space for ICE agents, enforcing immigration, are among those things.
Huffman spoke to The Daily Signal on Tuesday after he was awarded the 2025 Taxpayer Torch Award from Americans for Prosperity’s Ohio chapter.
The speaker highlighted how “one of the fights [he’s been] fighting for many years is that’s state stuff [versus] the federal government,” which he pointed out has “always been an argument.” As Huffman stressed, though, “immigration is a federal issue” and that “to the extent that local authorities can assist the federal law enforcement, they should be doing that, and if feds need to set up and get office space, of course we want that to happen, we want federal laws to be enforced.”
Huffman also spoke to how federal and local law enforcement work together.
He gave the Federal Bureau of Investigations as an example when speaking about the presence of the federal government “to enforce immigration laws or some other federal crime statue.”
“We don’t look at the FBI and say, ‘You’re not allowed to be in Columbus.’ But the investigations that they do … the federal prosecutors and state prosecutors, often work in coordination, give each other information, things like that,” Huffman explained.
“The concept that federal and state and local authorities are somehow segregated, that’s never been true,” he continued. “So, if ICE officials are here and somehow they can help with other things where it’s appropriate… it’s really about law enforcement coordinating with each other, and do you know sometimes they do that well and sometimes they don’t do it well. But that’s always been the case.”
Why the Speculation on ICE?
Various outlets, including NPR and The Columbus Dispatch, referenced the expansion of ICE in their coverage.
Last month, The Washington Post reported on ICE’s expansion:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking new office spaces in hundreds of locations across the United States to support plans to hire thousands of lawyers and immigration enforcement officers, according to six federal officials familiar with the matter and records obtained by The Washington Post.
The office spaces are being sought on ICE’s behalf by the General Services Administration, the agency responsible for managing federal real estate, according to the officials and the records. In recent weeks, high-level staffers with ICE approached the GSA and said the government needed to secure roughly 300 office sites nationwide as fast as possible, in a bid to house more than 10,000 new employees, the officials and the records show.
The piece referenced a “surge in ICE hiring.” In September, ICE began airing recruitment ads during NFL games, inviting people to apply.
When asked more about the GSA’s role and what the office space might be used for, GSA spokesperson Marianne Copenhaver offered to The Daily Signal that “GSA is proud to support all of our patriotic federal law enforcement partners and help them meet their workspace requirements.” The Daily Signal also reached out to ICE for comment but did not hear back.
The Daily Signal also asked Huffman if the focus on ICE may be why the GSA notice about office space is so newsworthy. “Whatever happens to be in the news is going to prick someone’s conscious,” he offered. “They kind of want to stare around and say, ‘I’m outraged about that.’” The speaker once more brought it back to a matter of jurisdiction, citing the example of the 1770 Boston Massacre which arose amid tensions between local authorities and British soldiers as to who would handle public order and anti-British protests.
Ohio has been in the news for crime and immigration enforcement before. In August, DeWine heeded the call from the Trump administration to send Ohio National Guard to Washington, D.C., with 150 guardsmen being sent over to our nation’s capital. Stricter immigration enforcement could also be coming to the Buckeye State, as the state legislature considers several bills on the matter.
