Kristi Noem’s plans for a new migrant detention stalled at the starting line after an auto racing series blasted her proposals for using their intellectual property.
“COMING SOON to Indiana: The Speedway Slammer,” the cosplay-loving homeland security secretary announced in a statement Tuesday. The DHS explicitly framed the plan as a follow-up to its Florida detention center, which the Trump administration gave a similarly toe-curling name: Alligator Alcatraz.
Located at Indiana’s Miami Correctional Center, the new facility promises to expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention space by 1,000 beds, and will supposedly “house some of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens arrested by ICE.”
The name appears to have been intended as a tribute to the state’s history as a racing hub, with the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway situated roughly 60 miles south of the existing prison.
The Department of Homeland Security also posted an image on X depicting an IndyCar with “ICE” on its side, along with a caption reading: “The Speedway Slammer 🏁.”
But Indianapolis Motor Speedway is having absolutely none of it.
“We were unaware of plans to incorporate our imagery as part of today’s announcement,” a spokesperson told local news station WISH-TV. “Consistent with our approach to public policy and political issues, we are communicating our preference that our IP [intellectual property] not be utilized moving forward in relation to this matter.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to IndyCar and the Department of Homeland Security for further comment.
The DHS’ Tuesday statement notes the Speedway Slammer “marks the second state partnership to expand ICE detention space” after the “Alligator Alcatraz” facility—an initiative that was met with a furious backlash. That site sees detainees kept in tents on an abandoned airstrip in the Florida Everglades, itself surrounded by alligators, snakes, and other dangerous wildlife.
Both sites fit neatly with the tenor of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which has not only seen migrants detained at Guantanamo Bay and a Salvadoran megaprison.
The administration is also exploring options for reverting Alcatraz Island to a functioning prison, after more than fifty years as a popular tourist attraction, complete with a museum and gift shop.
Quite aside from dark complaints about the living conditions at Alligator Alcatraz, claims that these state partnerships are designed to create detention space for “the worst of the worst” have also come under intense scrutiny.
Immigration data obtained by NBC News in June revealed ICE officials have detained just 6 percent of the 13,000 immigrants to the U.S. known to have committed murder, and at most 11 percent of the 16,000 migrants convicted of sexual assault.
