DOnald Trump’s proposal to reopen Alcatraz, the infamous prison closed its doors over 60 years ago, sparked the big newspapers during the weekend. But it is not the only notorious prison or prison that the administration sought to reuse mass detentions.
In recent months, the US government has prompted to reopen at least five other closed detention and prisons, some have closed its concerns about the security and ill -treatment of prisoners. While California legislators quickly rejected Alcatraz’s announcement as “no serious” and distraction, the efforts of the Trump administration to reopen other facilities plagued by a scandal are in progress or already finished, in partnership with for -profit prison companies.
Closed prisons are relaunched for immigration detainees, unlike the alleged plan of the American president for Alcatraz, who, according to him, on social networks, would imprison “the most ruthless and violent offenders in America”.
The application of American immigrants and customs (ICE) sought to reopen California City Correctional Facility, a state prison in the southern desert region of California which closed last year, according to the government’s contract files. The installation belongs to Corecivic, a long -standing detention partner of the ice, and previously housed more than 2,000 people.
Californian democrats also warned that ice was interested in reopening federal correctional establishments (FCI), Dublin, an American prison closed last year in the midst of scandals surrounding systemic sexual abuses by staff and concerns about mold and asbestos. The union of correctional agents indicated that the staff had recently been forced to do maintenance work in Dublin under dangerous conditions, apparently to prepare for a reopening, but Ice and the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which manages Dublin, did not comment on the plans.
The California communities, the most populous state in the country and are home to almost a quarter of immigrants in the United States, have long been opposed to ice detention centers, and there are currently no ice prisons in the north of Bakersfield in the Central Valley, said Susan Beaty, main lawyer for collaborative California for immigrant justice.
“When there are fewer ice beds to incarcerate people, there are fewer arrests and less application,” said Beaty, who represents people in ice and bop. “We do not want the ice to widen their capacity to caginate the members of our community, because we know that this will lead to more incarceration and will allow them to terrorize our communities even more.”
In the county of Rural Lake, Michigan, Geo Group, another penitentiary company, reopens the closed correctional center of North Lake, which has a capacity of 1,800 people and would be the largest immigration detention center in the Midwest, according to the local news site Mlive.com. Over the years, the establishment housed imprisoned adolescents, people and immigrants imprisoned outside the state. But it has been dormant since its closure in 2022 under the Biden administration.
In 2020, the North Lake detainees made a hunger strike, alleging that they were denied access to their mail and their religiously appropriate food, their complaint documents were destroyed and were placed in the event of lonely isolation. Geo Group denied complaints at the time.
In Newark, in New Jersey, Geo Group recently reopened the closed installations of Delaney Hall for prisoners in immigration, even if the company faces a trial awaiting the city alleging that it had not filed the required construction permits or authorizes inspectors inside, according to the Northjersey.com news site.
“They follow the president’s model … who believes he can simply do what he wants to do and obscure the laws,” Newark mayor, Ras Baraka said on Monday.
Christopher Ferreira, spokesperson for Geo Group, said in an email that the company had a “valid occupation certificate” and was in accordance with the health and security requirements. The mayor’s opposition was “another unfortunate example of an campaign politicized by Sanctuary City and politicians of the open borders in New Jersey to interfere with the federal government,” he added.
During a call for results in December 2024, Geo Group said he was in “active discussions” with ice and the US marshals on their interest in six of his inactive facilities.
In Leavenworth, Kansas, Corecivic strives to reopen an immigration detention center closed in 2021 under Joe Biden. The proposal of the Midwest Regional Reception Center (MRRC) sparked a counterpoup from the city of Leavenworth, which continued Corecivic in March, alleging that the company had not followed the appropriate authorization protocols.
In 2021, ACLU allegedly alleged that the Leavenworth installation was beset by problems, including frequent stabs, suicides and smuggling, and that “fundamental human needs (were) not satisfied”, with restricted contacts of food, a lawyer and a family refused or restricted, limited medical care and unrealized showers. A federal judge described the installation of “hellish hole”.
Ryan Gustin, A Corecivic Spokesperson, Defended the Company’s Decades of Operations in Leavenworth in an Email On Monday, Saying Understaffing Amid the Pandemic “was the main contributor to the challenges” and “The outcome were concentrased in about an 18-month period” Grateful for a More Stable Labor Market Post-Pandemic, and We’ve Had a Positive Response With Nearly 1,400 (Applicants) Expressing Interest in one of the 300 positions that the installation will create.
“In one of our establishments, including MRRC, we do not reduce the corners of care, staff or training, which meets, and in many cases exceeds, the standards of our government partners,” he said. He also underlined a recent editorial by the director, who argued that the installation “is and has always been properly zoned”.
Corecivic also reopened a family detention center in Texas last month.
The use of closed prisons is only a way in which the ice extends detention for Trump’s mass deportations. He also moved to immigration prisoners in the BOP facilities which are currently hosting criminal defendants, which has made concerns about poor conditions, rights violations and the lack of basic resources as staff manage several populations under one roof. Trump also pushed to extend local prison contracts and use military ice basis.
Eunice Cho, the main lawyer for the national aclu prison, which obtained public archives on the expansion detention of the ICE, said that ICE was unaware of security problems in previously closed facilities.
“This is a continuous model of the Trump administration’s desire to knowingly place immigrants in detention facilities already well known to have dangerous conditions,” she said. “They put people in facilities where the conditions are so disastrous … that people simply abandon their valid relief claims to stay in the United States.”
There are increasing local reactions to these facilities, Cho added: “When people realize what is happening in these facilities, it is not something they want to see closely. People become very aware that billions of dollars are spent to enrich private prison companies to keep people in abyssal conditions … including their neighbors, colleagues and friends. “
Ice did not respond to a request for comments on Monday.
Donald Murphy, a spokesperson for the BOP, did not answer questions about Dublin’s reported reopening for ice. William K Marshall III, director of the BOP, said in a press release that the office “would vigorously continue all the ways to support and implement the agenda of the president” and had ordered an “immediate evaluation” to determine “our needs and the following stages” for Alcatraz: “We are impatiently waiting to restore this powerful symbol of the law, order and justice”.
Corene Kendrick, assistant director of the ACLU national prison, rejected Trump’s Alcatraz declaration as a “stuntman”, noting that the cellular block of the prison has neither running water nor wastewater and limited electricity.
“I do not know if we can call it a” proposition “, because that implies that real thought has been put there,” she said. “It is completely eccentric and absurd, and it would be impossible to reopen these old and ruined buildings like everything that looks like a functional prison.”
