Tennessee Town Approves Plan to Turn Closed Prison Into ICE Detention Facility

Mason officials have approved agreements to convert the shuttered West Tennessee Detention Facility into a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center run by CoreCivic Inc., despite heated opposition from residents and activists.

The five-member Board of Aldermen, Mayor Eddie Noeman, and Vice Mayor Reynaldo Givhan voted Tuesday in a fire station garage, passing both a contract with CoreCivic to reopen the prison and an agreement with ICE. The facility, closed in 2021 under President Joe Biden’s order halting DOJ contracts with private prisons, will reopen under President Donald Trump’s reversal of that policy.

No timeline for reopening was announced.

Economic pitch sparks backlash

Mayor Noeman, an Egyptian-American immigrant and longtime business owner, said the project would create jobs and boost Mason’s struggling economy. “It’s nothing personal about any immigrant… to give jobs to the people is what I’m looking for,” he said, prompting boos and tense exchanges with attendees.

Board member Virginia Rivers voted against the plan, warning it would make Mason “complicit in the abusive treatment of immigrants” and pointing to ICE’s detention of non-criminal migrants.

CoreCivic promises jobs, revenue — critics cite abuse record

CoreCivic said the facility would generate nearly 240 jobs at $26.50 an hour, plus $325,000 in annual property tax revenue and $200,000 for local projects. Critics countered with the company’s troubled history: Tennessee has fined CoreCivic $44.7 million since 2022 for understaffing and other violations, and records show more than $4.4 million paid to settle about 80 mistreatment claims since 2016 — including at least 22 inmate deaths.

Some residents argued the move repeats a pattern of placing controversial facilities in majority-Black communities for minimal benefit. “They throw crumbs on the table while taking the majority of the money out,” said local speaker Charles Watkins.

CoreCivic previously operated the prison under its former name, Corrections Corporation of America.