Baldwin, MI — Today, The GEO Group announced a new contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the GEO-owned North Lake Facility (North Lake) in Baldwin, Michigan. North Lake closed in 2022 as a result of Biden’s executive order to end the use of private prisons by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). With a capacity to detain 1,800 people, North Lake will become one of the largest ICE detention centers in the country. North Lake is among several shuttered BOP private prisons that have been converted into ICE detention centers over the years. This news is the latest development in Trump’s massive immigration detention expansion plan, which is attempting to triple the immigration detention system’s capacity.
North Lake was previously used by the BOP as a segregated immigrant-only prison. The reopening of the facility shines a light on a critical flaw of Biden’s 2021 executive order which excluded the largest share of privately operated detention facilities in the federal system: ICE detention centers. A 2023 report by Detention Watch Network and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center detailed how jails and prisons nationwide will close for one purpose, only to reopen and incarcerate a different group of people, creating a “Carceral Carousel.”
“GEO Group and other private contractors are teeming over Trump’s continued expansion of ICE detention and particularly at the prospect of cashing in on their vacant prisons, like North Lake, that were recently forced to shutter,” said Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network. “The perverse financial incentives are glaring as GEO Group stands to generate in excess of $70 million in annualized revenue from North Lake, at the expense of people’s lives and a small community that has been forced to rely on a carceral economy. Trump’s cruel detention and deportation agenda proliferates across government agencies and the private sector, as immigrants are locked up in abysmal conditions in local jails, federal prisons, military bases, and privately owned facilities, continuing an infinite loop of profit and cruelty at the expense of people’s lives.”
The group No Detention Centers in Michigan composed of immigrant justice advocates from across the state have documented inhumane conditions at North Lake and previously called out how GEO Group targets rural communities to deepen their dependency on carceral economies, including Baldwin. In 2020, two years before the facility’s closure, there were six documented hunger strikes and the tragic story of Jesse Dean. Dean spent 26 years behind bars, including time at North Lake, before he was transferred into ICE custody in 2020. Weeks later in ICE custody, after repeatedly notifying detention staff of severe pain, he died of a bleeding ulcer and hypertension.
“In the most egregious way, Dean’s case illustrates how medical neglect is inherent to incarceration, whether it’s BOP custody, ICE custody, or a combined partnership. The ‘Carceral Carousel’ that people are forced to endure can be deadly,” said JR Martin with No Detention Centers in Michigan. “Lives are in jeopardy. We denounce the reopening of North Lake and know that our communities are worth more. There is a crucial need to transition communities reliant on jails and prisons away from carceral economies and toward sustainable, well-paying, and dignified industries that will provide meaningful work and resources for communities, without causing harm and furthering Trump’s cruel anti-immigrant agenda.”
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Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.