The GEO Group, a private prison operator, announced Thursday it entered into a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a 1,800-bed facility in Baldwin, Michigan, at the former North Lake Correctional Facility.
The contract came as mass deportations have prompted the Trump administration to use Guantanamo Bay and El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, among other detention centers, to detain illegal immigrants.
GEO anticipated the facility to generate $70 million a year in revenue as it will provide security, maintenance, food services, medical care, legal counsel, and access to recreational amenities. ICE will exclusively use the center. Its contract is multiyear, but the company did not disclose how long it could last.
“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 bed space,” GEO Group Executive Chairman George C. Zoley said in a statement. “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.”
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ICE has been focusing on detaining immigrants on student visas over their anti-Israel sentiment, including Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown student from India whose Palestinian wife’s father is a Hamas political adviser. ICE also arrested Syrian national Mahmoud Khalil, who had his green card revoked over his participation in several anti-Israel protests in which Hamas propaganda was distributed.
There are an estimated 1.3 million illegal immigrants with outstanding deportation orders.