(The Center Square) – A former federal prison with 1,320 beds in northeastern North Carolina, privately owned by Florida-headquartered GEO Group, will become a federal immigration processing center.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s five-year deal with GEO was made by the company on Wednesday. The Rivers Facility, in the Hertford County community of Winton, had one of the highest percentages of inmate-on-inmate issues in a 2016 Department of Justice review and closed in 2021 following then-President Joe Biden’s directive to phase out contracts with privately owned prisons.
Employment was about 300 before closure. Population of Winston – the county seat – is 629; Hertford County is 19,015.
GEO Group, in Boca Raton, is a global company employing 20,000 people at 95 facilities. The company will provide support services, security, maintenance, food service, recreational amenities, medical care and legal counsel in support services to ICE.
GEO bills itself as providing “provides complementary, turnkey solutions for numerous government partners worldwide across a spectrum of diversified correctional and community reentry services.”
In a company release, GEO chairman, CEO and founder George C. Zoley said, “We expect that our company-owned Rivers Facility in Winton, North Carolina, will play an important role in helping meet the need for increased federal immigration processing center bedspace. We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to assist the federal government in meeting its immigration enforcement priorities.”
The potential reopening of the facility has led to two occasions where immigration rights advocates rallied against the idea. One was March 14 in Ahoskie, the nearly 5,000-population primary retail and business community of the county, and the other was Wednesday of last week at the Legislative Building on Jones Street in Raleigh.
First-term Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said, “ICE has a proven track record of arresting, detaining, and abusing American citizens, and the overwhelming majority of people ICE has detained have no criminal record.”
To enter America from another country, if not a U.S. citizen, a visa or some other travel authorization is required to be presented at a port of entry. Those who do not break the law with their first step in America.
