Today, GEO Group announced a five-year contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to reopen the 1,320-bed Rivers Facility in Winton, North Carolina, for immigration detention. The deal comes less than a week after The New York Times reported negotiations were underway. At the time, an ICE spokesperson said the agency had “no new detention centers to announce,” despite visible construction activity at Rivers over several weeks and documents obtained by The New York Times which revealed ICE planned to the facility by the end of the year. Read ACLU-NC's statement responding to The New York Times article here.
ICE and its contractors are out of control. Their expansion has been marked by secrecy, while taxpayer dollars continue to bankroll a cruel deportation agenda. In the last few weeks, ICE agents shot and killed two people, and a GEO Group employee shot a protester. Inside GEO Group facilities, people continue to endure inhumane and dangerous conditions in a system designed to maximize corporate profits at the cost of human lives and dignity.
For months, people in Winton watched construction at the Rivers Facility and demanded answers about what was happening in their own community. Community members and organizations across North Carolina sought basic transparency about the government’s detention plans. Instead of providing answers, ICE hid the truth, forcing advocates to rely on litigation and sustained public pressure to uncover information that should have been public from day one. This contract is expected to generate an estimated $80 million in revenue for GEO Group in its first year of operation. Our government should be accountable to the people it serves, not enable corporations that profit from the suffering of our community members.
As one of ICE's largest contractors, GEO Group brought in a record $2.6 billion in revenue in 2025 while facing multiple lawsuits over horrific conditions in its facilities. As ICE and GEO Group celebrate another detention contract, North Carolinians bear the cost of a detention system that separates families, violates constitutional rights, and targets Black, Brown, and immigrant communities.
North Carolinians deserve honesty and accountability about decisions that will profoundly impact our communities. Real public safety comes from investing in housing, health care, education, and other resources communities need to thrive. That is the North Carolina we will continue fighting for.
