Roger Wicker, this state’s senior member of the U.S. Senate, is suddenly a hero to many Mississippians for his tough stance against an ICE detention center that a federal agency had proposed for the hamlet of Byhalia in the state’s northeast corner.
I agree that Sen. Wicker deserves a round of thanks.
The Republican lashed out against the Trump administration’s proposal to create the facility, and they have pretty much since shelved the idea.
Minds can change, but it seems final for now that the facility will go elsewhere. Godspeed! Watch that swingin’ door behind you.
The 19-year member of the Senate hasn’t always been so popular. In recent months, protesters have railed outside Wicker’s Jackson field office on a profusion of issues — “No Kings” rallies fighting Trump authoritarianism (another rally is planned for late March), protests to state and federal “school choice” initiatives, marches for LGBTQ rights and untold others.
I’ve never thought Wicker was much of a stand-in for the party or President Trump. That’s better left to the state’s other GOP senator, the more ardent Trump backer, Cindy Hyde-Smith.
I covered Wicker when he was a state legislator years ago. He seems to run hot and cold with the Mississippi electorate, but he runs hottest at election time when you consider he’s never lost a race.
A Pontotoc native, son of a revered judge in that area, lawyer and longtime military reservist, Wicker entered politics in 1988 as a state senator after a stint on the staff of U.S. Sen. Trent Lott. He only spent $25,000 to win that first race.
The ante went up to $750,000 in 1994 when North Mississippi voters elected Wicker to succeed the nation’s longest-serving congressman, Jamie Whitten of Charleston, in the U.S. House of Representatives. Among those Wicker defeated in the Republican primary was former U.S. Attorney Robert Whitwell, who’s identifiable as the judge that gave Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss another year of college eligibility.
In the general election, Wicker beat Democratic lawyer and former state Rep. Bill Wheeler. Wicker became the state’s first Republican to represent that area in more than a century. He was reelected six times before Gov. Haley Barbour appointed him in 2007 to replace Lott in the U.S. Senate. He subdued former Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in a 2008 special election, and won a full term in 2012.
Wicker, a staunch backer of U.S. military forces since his own service days, rose in the Senate ranks until being appointed chairman of the prestigious Armed Services Committee in January 2025. In that role, Wicker’s handiwork will always be compared to the state’s former all-powerful chairman of that panel, the late Sen. John C. Stennis, who held the position from 1969-1981.
The former warehouse site in Byhalia would have held about 8,600 ICE detainees before protests derailed it, followed by Wicker’s opposition.
The state’s northeast corner has been fortunate in landing numerous economic development projects in recent years. This decision will enhance those efforts.
