Protests are rare in Ahoskie, a northeastern North Carolina town of less than 5,000 people.
But this small town is in Hertford County, which could be key to the expansion of immigration detention in the U.S. It’s home to the Rivers Correctional Institute, the state’s only privately-owned prison.
The prison’s owners are in talks with ICE to relaunch the 257-acre site as a roughly 1,300-bed immigration detention center, according to documents published by the American Civil Liberties Union and previous reporting by The Washington Post.
This was enough to rally a few dozen local residents to stage a protest at a sleepy intersection on a recent Saturday afternoon.
“This is the first one,” said Ahoskie resident Bobby Ray Riddick, 62. “It’s normally pretty quiet out here.”
Last year, Congress approved $45 billion for the expansion of immigration detention systems nationwide.
Now, federal officials are eyeing at least three North Carolina cities and towns for the expansion, prompting pushback from residents in areas across the state.
Ranging from high schoolers to senior citizens, the Ahoskie protesters held anti-ICE signs and chanted common slogans, including: “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! G-E-O has got to go!"
The Rivers Correctional Institute is owned by The GEO Group, one of the world’s largest private prison operators.
The facility’s federal contract expired in 2021 and closed after a Biden Administration effort to close for-profit prisons.
Now, The GEO Group is pitching it to ICE as ready for immediate use pending a new contract, the ACLU’s documents show.
Proposed reopening of a rural prison
The GEO Group says their facility’s “rural setting offers a secure operational environment with minimal community disruption” is a selling point.
ICE has already contracted The GEO Group to reopen a prison as a detention center in New Jersey, and also to expand Georgia detention center into one of the nation’s largest, NPR previously reported.
Booker Daniel, who lives in nearby Murfreesboro, a town of about 2,500, says she’s protesting for her home county.
“This is my home, and I don’t want my home to be inhospitable to anybody,” said Daniel, 67. “We can rise to the occasion. I hope we can do something to make them have second thoughts about putting it here.”
When the Rivers Correctional Institute was open, federal inspectors reported
instances of violence, high rates of contraband and inmate sexual abuse.
Its closure led to about 300 layoffs in a county already facing population decline, according to the Department of Commerce.
Some residents support reopening Rivers to bring those jobs back. Hertford County commissioner Leroy Douglas previously told The News & Observer that residents “want to get back to work locally.”
Hertford County officials previously said they cannot do anything to stop the federal government if ICE chooses to relaunch the prison. An ICE spokesperson did not respond to WUNC News’ request for comment.
Former plantation on Indigenous land
The Rivers facility acted as a Criminal Alien Requirement prison, mostly housing noncitizens serving federal sentences, according to University of North Carolina researcher Andreina Malki.
The facility is built on a former cotton plantation on land that once belonged to the Meherrin Indian Tribe. The Antebellum-era graves of the slave-owning Vann family are still visible on the property.
“The prison’s construction had to accommodate the cemetery due to anti-desecration laws, embedding the past into the present in both material and symbolic ways,” according to Malki’s website.
In Greensboro, a proactive response
Farther west in Greensboro, leaders are moving to get ahead of similar plans. Last month, the city amended its zoning laws to require a more rigorous process for approving any private prisons.
City Attorney Lora Cubbage said the amendment is meant to clarify how detention facilities are classified under the city’s zoning rules and adds multiple layers of scrutiny.
Under the new rules, buildings that aren’t residential or commercial must be kept at least 2,500 feet away from neighborhoods, hospitals, churches, or parks.
“I hope and pray we never even have to consider one being here,” said Mayor Marikay Abuzuaiter.
“It's not something that I feel is appropriate for the city of Greensboro and our zoning rules. Not only that, the fear that our residents would have," the mayor said.
The city’s decision came after documents released by the ACLU listed Greensboro as the location for another proposed detention center.
The proposal comes from private company The Baptiste Group.
The company is pitching the 100-acre American Hebrew Academy, a former boarding school located off Hobbs Road, as a potential detention center. It was previously proposed to reopen as a short-term facility to house unaccompanied migrant children.
The Baptiste Group previously lost its license to run a facility for migrant children in Chattanooga, Tennessee, over allegations of sexual misconduct, investigative outlet Tennessee Lookout reported.
The documents pitched this facility as a potential “cornerstone of federal detention operations.”Attempts to reach The Baptiste Group by phone for this story were unsuccessful.
The city said there’s been no communication with ICE about the use of the property.
Cary residents say no to ICE
While no detention centers have been proposed in Cary, the debate over immigration expansion sparked the most public protests in the bedroom community near Raleigh.
This year, WIRED magazine reported that the federal government was planning to expand its presence into 150 cities – including Cary. The reports have not been confirmed.
The Regency Parkway address for the alleged office appears in the U.S. General Services Administration’s website.
It says the lease took effect in October, but it doesn't say which government agency is using the space.
Protesters gathered outside Cary Town Hall and Mayor Harold Weinbrecht faced a room full of opposition and questions regarding the rumor of ICE expansion at a recent State of the Town address.
Residents criticized Weinbrecht for stating that the town has no authority to block federal action, in this case interfering with the federal government leasing an office.
The Mayor said his strategy is to not draw attention from federal officials. “If you have a public statement, you're asking for an invitation,” he said. “You're asking them to come here and you put the very people you want me to protect in danger.”
ICE is also considering a warehouse in Concord that could house 1,500 detainees as part of their expansion, The New York Times reported.
