The Trump administration is looking to expand immigrant detention space dramatically on the East Coast with plans to open a 1,400-bed facility in North Carolina by the year’s end, according to a new report.
Federal officials have brought in a private company, GEO Group, to convert Rivers Correctional Institution in Winton, North Carolina, into the agency’s newest detention center for illegal immigrants who have been arrested by ICE and are going through court proceedings to be deported, according to the New York Times. The prison closed in 2021, and planners are looking to get it up and running by December.
The move comes as the Department of Homeland Security and White House have shifted their approach to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign since the departure of now-former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this year. Noem and her former cohort, special government employee Corey Lewandowski, chose to expand immigrant detention space significantly by shopping for 10 massive warehouses and converting them into jails.
Noem had also worked with states to stand up their own temporary immigrant detention sites, such as Cornhusker Clink in Nebraska and Alligator Alcatraz in Florida.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and DHS advisers chose to walk away from more than half a dozen warehouses that Noem tried to buy with the intention of converting the facilities into illegal immigrant jails, making ICE’s decision to purchase what will be one of the largest detention centers on the East Coast significant.
The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina called for the government to cancel its plans.
“We deserve better than this. The people of Hertford County deserve jobs with dignity that support long-term investment in our rural communities, not jobs that rely on the suffering of vulnerable communities. We need transparency from our government, not behind-the-scenes negotiations pledging billions of taxpayer dollars to expand a deadly detention and mass deportation campaign that fails to address the real needs of North Carolinians,” said Liz Barber, ACLU of North Carolina’s director of policy and advocacy.
GEO Group and CoreCivic are the two primary contractors that operate detention centers for ICE, though the large majority of buildings that ICE uses to detain illegal immigrants are county jails and state prisons.
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The DHS Office of Inspector General has launched an investigation into Noem and Lewandowski’s plans to spend $38 billion converting warehouses into jails out of concern that the department significantly overpaid and issued contracts to those with personal connections.
ICE and the DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
