News on ICE Warehouses & Related Topics:
Please share your educational flyers with NoCCUS. We’re looking for the flyers you’ve created locally to push back against the activation of prisons under contractor management. Send to: noconcentrationcampsus@gmail.com
Aug 5: Wired reported on an important case for activists to watch. Hilton v. Noem is a federal case from Maine in which plaintiffs have accused DHS of violating their First Amendment rights by surveilling their activities while protesting. The violations included activities like scanning faces, collecting license plate information, and saying that the data was going to be entered in a database. Discovery upon the part of DHS has included attempts to gain access to information in group Signal chats.
Aug 5: CoreCivic sold Prairie Correctional Facility $495.6M (Appleton, MN) and Midwest Regional Reception Center $238.4M (Leavenworth, KS) to DHS. Management of both facilities will continue under CoreCivic under existing contracts. The change in ownership may shield the company from local health and safety reviews as well as protect them from certain kinds of lawsuits.
Aug 7: Authorities at the Adams County Health Department in CO who have been trying to gain access to the GEO facility in Aurora over a tuberculosis outbreak have said they are unlikely to take any further action currently. The ongoing federal lawsuit in which GEO has challenged the state’s authority would likely lead to a stay by the court until that issue is resolved.
Aug 8: ICE announced that every field officer will be equipped with a body camera by the end of August. The release of body cam footage will remain up to ICE and its “best interests” which has not been clarified/defined at this point.
Aug 8: NPR reported that the GEO Group and CoreCivic pocketed $1.4B as immigration detention levels rise to record levels. CoreCivic made an additional $1.6B by selling four facilities to DHS recently.
Aug 9: A July 29 Quinnipiac poll indicated that 60% of registered voters disapproved of the way ICE was doing its job while 37% approved. Furthermore, the partisan divide was even more exaggerated. 94% of Democrats disapprove, 67% of Independents disapprove, while only 22% of Republicans disapprove.
Aug 10: The Guardian covered the story of Gabar Choli, a Kurdish filmmaker, who was subjected to forced feeding for almost eight months while in detention. Since Jan. 2025, at least 10 hunger strikers were forced into involuntary medical procedures which included forced feeding. A spokesperson for Physicians for Human Rights called repeated force feeding, “just inhumane from beginning to end.”
Aug 10: Hagerstown Rapid Response in MD reported that 4,028 residential properties may risk a decrease in property value should the county and DHS proceed with the ICE warehouse there. Citing existing research on prisons, Hagerstown could lose $22.3M in home value in properties near the facility. A complete economic impact study by the government was never completed for Hagerstown. Washington County ICE Jail Could Wipe $22.3 Million Off Local Home Values
Aug 11: Our Rescue (a company founded by and formerly headed by Tim Ballard, former ICE agent and accused sex trafficker), received a $158M contract to represent unaccompanied migrant children. This follows the Trump administration ending contracts with non-profits that had two decades of experience working in this area.
Aug 11: ICE is planning on releasing a no-bid contract for up to $20M to buy gloves that can deliver electric shocks to supposedly gain compliance from combative individuals. Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter (GLOVE) devices are manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC in Lexington, KY. Some jails and police departments have them. Civil rights advocates are alarmed that ICE will be outfitted with these devices since they are notorious for use of force violations and lack training and oversight.
Aug 11: The Huffington Post reported on a new study by lead researcher Charis Kubrin (UC Irvine) who found no link between undocumented immigrants and crime rate. “Consistent with the research base more generally, unauthorized immigration does not drive crime rates in U.S. neighborhoods,” says Kubrin. “Honestly, I wasn’t too surprised.” It is the first study to examine the unauthorized immigration-crime relationship at the neighborhood level at high scale. 11,500 neighborhoods with 46M residents were studied from 2010 to 2018.
Aug 13: Project Salt Box reported that ICE amended the timeline associated with the government’s new build program of 8, one-story cell blocks. Instead of a two-year timeline, they are calling for it to be done in a year. Six of the sites are on the US mainland, the other two are in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
Aug 13: The State of Colorado issued a public health order following the GEO Group’s continued non-compliance with local Adams County requests over a TB outbreak in the Aurora detention facility.
Links:
Solidarity Warriors YouTube: (Indivisible near Denver CO):
The Business of Deportation: Contractors, Cash & Colorado Updates
Fundraiser for Brooke Thao by Nan Nickson : Help Bring Alee Vang Home to His Wife and Seven Children
New Tool: The ICE Detention Mortality Dashboard | IceTracking.org
ICE LIST OF CONTRACTOR SITES TO BE PURCHASED
(10* “Turnkey”detention facilities the government wants)
1. California City Detention Center, California City, CA (CoreCivic) purchased July 2, 2026
2. Otay Mesa Detention Center, San Diego, CA (CoreCivic) purchased July 2, 2026
3. Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center, Bakersfield, CA (GEO)
4. NW ICE Processing Center, Tacoma, WA (GEO)
5. Aurora Processing Center, Aurora, CO (GEO)
6. Central Louisiana Processing Center, Jena, LA (GEO)
7. Winn Processing Center, Winnfield, LA (LaSalle)
8. Montgomery Processing Center, Conroe, TX (GEO)
9. Unknown
10. Unknown
*Initial list provided by an unnamed source to Project Salt Box)
11. Prairie Correctional Facility, Appleton, MN (CoreCivic) purchased Aug 5, 2026
12. Midwest Regional Reception Center, Leavenworth, KS (CoreCivic) purchased Aug 5, 2026
WHY??
Government ownership removes facilities from local health & safety inspections and shields contractors from some lawsuits.
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