A private prisoner company has signed an agreement to reopen an immigrant detention center in Texas that previously maintained families with children for the application of immigration and customs of the United States, the company said Wednesday.
Corecivic, based in Nashville, announced the contract with ICE and the city of Dilley with respect to the residential center of the South Texas family of 2,400 beds, located about 85 miles (135 kilometers) north of Laredo and the border of Mexico.
The center was used during the administration of President Barack Obama and the first presidency of Donald Trump. But President Joe Biden eliminated family arrest in 2021, and Corecivic said the installation was inactive in 2024.
“We recognize that we anticipate housing families” in Dilley, said Corecivic spokesman Ryan Gustin Associated Press.
Corecivic said in a statement that the installation “was specially designed for ice in 2014 to provide an appropriate environment for a family population.” The new contract extends at least in March 2030.
ICE officials did not immediately respond to messages that seek information about who will be held in Dilley and how soon.
The agency, which mostly stops immigrants in private operations detention facilities, their own processing centers and local prisons and prisons, entered this year with zero facilities aimed at families, who last year represented approximately one third of the arrivals on the southern border.
The Trump administration has expanded the arrest of migrants to military bases, including the Naval Station of the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, through flights outside the army facilities in El Paso, Texas, since it promises to increase mass deportations.
Private detention contractors with long -standing ties with ICE, including Corecivic and Geo Group, say they offer less expensive options than the military for a variety of immigrants and transportation services, including international flights.
During Trump’s first administration, he authorized the use of Military bases to stop immigrantsincluding army facilities in Fort Bliss, Texas, and the Base of the Goodfellow Air Force.
In 2014, Obama was temporarily based on military bases to stop immigrant children while increasing family detention centers in private to keep many of the tens of thousands of Central American families that cross the border illegally.
