Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 23
ICE to Open 1,400-Bed North Carolina Detention Center by Year-End
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 23

ICE to Open 1,400-Bed North Carolina Detention Center by Year-End

1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 23

Summary

  • Internal documents show ICE plans to open a roughly 1,400-bed detention center at the dormant Rivers Correctional Institution in Winton, North Carolina, by the end of 2026.
  • The GEO Group-owned site would be North Carolina's first ICE detention center and among the largest on the East Coast, with contract talks still underway.
  • The move shows ICE is still expanding detention capacity for the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign even after backing away from a warehouse-buying push.
  • June documents showed ICE planned to offload seven warehouses bought for more than $700 million, while DHS this month said it would not use a Berks County, Pennsylvania, warehouse.
  • Instead, ICE is leaning on private prison operators to repurpose existing complexes in states seen as more receptive to such facilities, including North Carolina, Colorado and Arizona.

Insights

After a failed billion-dollar plan, is repurposing controversial private prisons a more effective or a more dangerous immigration strategy?
Amidst a record surge in detainee deaths, how will new private detention centers ensure the safety and health of those inside?
A prison shut down for abuse is reopening as a detention center. What has changed to protect the people inside and the community?