ICE touts nearly 33,000 migrant arrests in less than 2 months of new Trump term
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, released recent migrant arrest numbers of those illegally in the U.S.
Straight Arrow News
- The ACLU is concerned about an ICE contract to house immigrant inmates in Michigan.
- A private company in Florida secured a contract with ICE to hold immigrant inmates in a prison in northern Michigan.
A private company said Thursday it has obtained a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to start housing immigrant inmates at its 1,800-bed prison in northern Michigan, sparking concern from civil rights advocates.
GEO Group, a for-profit prison company based in Boca Raton, Florida, owns and operates North Lake Correctional Facility near Baldwin, but it was shuttered in 2022 after the administration of President Joe Biden ended the use of private prisons by the Department of Justice. Now, GEO Group is reopening the center, issuing a public statement that there will be an “immediate activation of a federal immigration processing center” at North Lake, boasting it will bring in $70 million in annual revenue. When open, the prison has been one of the biggest employers in the Baldwin area in Lake County.
“Within a few months, GEO and ICE expect to finalize a long-term contract,” GEO Group said in its news release. “GEO expects to provide support services for ICE at the Facility under a multi-year contract that would be expected to generate in excess of $70 million in annualized revenues in the first full year of operations.”
Officials with GEO Group contacted by the Free Press did not provide details on when it would open and start taking in immigrant inmates.
“We are unable to comment beyond our press release,” Christopher Ferreira, director of corporate relations, said in an email to the Free Press.
ICE did not comment on GEO Group’s announcement. This is the third contract tied to ICE that GEO Group has announced over the past month as immigration enforcement toughens under President Donald Trump, requiring more prison space. In Trump’s first term, GEO Group announced it was reopening North Lake to house immigrant inmates, but it closed in 2022.
Groups such as No Detention Centers in Michigan have raised concerns over the years about treatment of prisoners at North Lake. And now, some immigrant advocates are concerned it may lead to both inhumane treatment of immigrant inmates and also increased targeting of immigrants in the general population.
“We’re very concerned about the expansion of ICE detention at North Lake,” Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, told the Free Press in a phone interview. “Expansion of detention in the area will … place immigrant communities in the local area at further risk of enforcement by ICE and detention by ICE.”
Cho added: “We’ve always seen that when ICE detention capacity grows in the local area that local enforcement activities also start to increase.”
A report this week by Pro Publica on GEO Group said that the Florida company’s stock is now valued at $4 billion. The company “has surged in value under President Donald Trump. Investors are betting big on immigration detention. Its stock price doubled after Election Day,” Pro Publica said.
Cho said “we’re also concerned about the conditions of confinement at North Lake, and this is a facility that has had quite a marked history with respect to conditions of consignment, including reports and allegations of sexual abuse and assault, hunger strikes and other … instances of abuse and neglect in the detention facility.”
GEO Group has defended itself over the years and said Thursday it serves an important role.
“We expect that our company-owned North Lake Facility in Michigan will play an important role in helping meet the need for increased federal immigration processing center bedspace,” George Zoley, executive chairman of GEO, said in a statement in the company’s news release. “We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to help the federal government meet its expanded immigration enforcement priorities.”
Private prison companies like GEO Group market themselves by saying they provide employment for many, but the types of jobs often result in health problems for employees and increased domestic violence, as well as harming immigrant communities, Cho said.
“It is very disturbing that private prison companies are openly celebrating the profit that they’re going to be making off of the detention and suffering of immigrants in their custody,” Cho said. “Private prison companies, at the end of the day, are accountable to their shareholders and have every interest in increasing their bottom line, and the perverse incentives that private prison companies have in terms of cutting costs have direct impacts in the quality of care and the conditions of confinement that people held in those facilities will face.”
Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com or X @nwarikoo
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