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On July 13, residents of Neptune Township, New Jersey, voted to ban AI data centers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jails from being built in their town. While protests against the construction of AI data centers and ICE facilities have increased since Donald Trump’s reelection, the Neptune Township ordinance is the first in the U.S. reflecting a connection between the deportation regime and Big Tech.

Neptune residents’ move to oppose technofascism in their town also demonstrates the potential to form new coalitions, powered by grassroots organizing, for more democratic participation in local development. Ben Dziobek, executive director of Climate Revolution Action Network (CRAN), a New Jersey-based organization that helped mobilize support for the bans, told Insider NJ, “Banning ICE detention centers is the same fight as banning data centers … Neptune is deciding what it wants built in its town and what it doesn’t.”

Of course, the current upsurge in demonstrations against AI data centers and ICE immigrant jails is not in response to new phenomena. On the one hand, tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft have been building data centers for years, mostly to warehouse large amounts of data that governments, corporations, and consumers use for digital storage. However, the construction and operation of these new AI data centers raise questions about the undemocratic nature of economic development and Big Tech. Elon Musk’s xAI bypassed federal environmental regulations to build gas turbines for its Tennessee facilities. Meta worked covertly with some of Louisiana’s state elected officials to plan and build AI centers. And Trump, in his second term, has sought to restrict local and state regulation of AI, further greasing the skids for construction. These data centers pose environmental, health, and economic threats to residents and workers. They are linked to noise pollution and exorbitant levels of water and electric usage — and residents have complained of increases in utility bills.

On the other hand, ICE has relied on a network of hundreds of facilities since its formation in 2003. According to a 2024 Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse report on immigration, ICE held nearly 40,000 adults at the end of Joe Biden’s presidential term in January 2025. The Trump administration has sought to dramatically escalate ICE arrests and........

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