In Mason, Tennessee, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted Tuesday to allow CoreCivic, a private prison company, to operate the former West Tennessee Detention Facility as an ICE immigration detention center.
During a special meeting, the board approved two contracts: one with CoreCivic, passing 4-1 with two abstentions, and another with ICE, passing 3-2 with two abstentions. The contracts were finalized just a day before the vote, leaving little time for public review. Prior to the meeting, residents and nearby community members gathered on Main Street in the town of 1,500, protesting the facility’s reopening with signs opposing ICE and the detention center.
The 600-bed West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason, Tennessee, closed in 2021 after the Department of Justice, under President Joe Biden, declined to renew its contract with CoreCivic. In January, President Donald Trump reversed Biden’s directive, allowing private detention facilities to resume operations. Mason’s Mayor Eddie Noeman, the town’s first Egyptian immigrant mayor, supported both the CoreCivic and ICE contracts, emphasizing the economic and job growth benefits for the community. “We welcome everyone and their businesses with open arms,” Noeman stated.
The facility will create 240 jobs starting at $26.50/hour, generate $325,000 in annual property taxes, and provide a $200,000 impact fee. CoreCivic stated, “For more than 40 years, CoreCivic has played a limited but important role in America’s immigration system… Our responsibility is to care for each person respectfully and humanely while they receive the legal due process that they are entitled to.” Over 2,100 job applications have been submitted. The facility may open by late 2025, though its impact remains debated.
Talk-N West TN will continue to follow this developing story
1 thought on “ICE Detention Center APPROVED for Former West Tennessee Prison”
save a bed for that illegal, non American, OBUMMA !