GREELEY, Colo. -- A three-year battle to build an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Greeley is ending with an office opening this fall.

The issue was hotly contested shortly after Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck and others proposed the idea and asked Weld County commissioners and the Greeley City Council to support a local office.

Some still oppose the idea.

Susanne Villarreal, a local community activist and former city council candidate, told the Greeley Tribune the current ICE office makes sense.

"It would be interesting to know the stats of how many undocumented people are being seized (in Weld County), but if (the Greeley office's) purpose is to send undocumented people back to their home country, well I think the ICE raids did that," she said, referring to JBS Swift & Co. raids in December 2006. "... I think it's such a waste of your money, my money."

A spokesman for Sen. Wayne Allard, who supported the new office, said it would shift enforcing crimes related to undocumented residents from the Weld County Sheriff's Office to the appropriate federal agency. Weld County Sheriff John Cooke has estimated the county spends about $1.5 million a year on foreign-born inmates.

The office, which will be built on the west side of town, is expected to be completed by November.