ICE Quietly Expands California Detention Network with New Facility in Former Prison

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has quietly activated a new detention facility in McFarland, California, escalating its footprint in the Central Valley with a 700-bed center run by the for-profit GEO Group. Advocates report detainees began arriving at the Central Valley Annex last week, marking the second ICE detention center that has opened in California under the Trump administration since 2025.

This expansion brings California’s total ICE detention centers to eight, all privately operated, with a combined capacity nearing 10,000 beds. The average daily detainee population in California has surged from roughly 3,100 in April 2025 to over 5,300 today—a staggering 72% increase in under two years.

The new Central Valley Annex is situated adjacent to GEO Group’s Golden State Annex, another ICE facility in McFarland holding about 565 detainees. Both sites were once state prisons shuttered due to California’s declining incarcerated population and Governor Gavin Newsom’s commitment to end private prison contracts. GEO Group swiftly repurposed these former prisons into immigrant detention centers, despite state laws aimed at blocking such conversions.

In 2019, California Democrats passed legislation to prevent private prisons from becoming immigrant detention centers. But ICE sidestepped the law by signing a $1.5 billion, 15-year contract with GEO Group just weeks before the law took effect. A federal court later struck down the state law, ruling it infringed on federal immigration enforcement authority.

Local officials in McFarland have been caught between community concerns and the lure of millions in property tax and utility payments from GEO Group. The city’s 2020 planning commission deadlocked over GEO’s proposal to convert facilities, leading to the mayor’s resignation amid tensions. GEO promised $511,000 annually in mitigation payments and “well-paying jobs” to sway local opinion.

Despite California law requiring 180 days’ notice and public hearings before repurposing facilities for immigration detention, advocates say ICE began moving detainees into Central Valley Annex without community input or transparency. Anti-detention activist Edwin Carmona-Cruz bluntly stated, “We don’t want another ICE detention center in California, or anywhere else for that matter.”

The rapid growth of ICE detention nationwide is fueled by a $45 billion budget boost from a Trump-backed spending bill dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The administration aims to detain over 100,000 immigrants daily, more than doubling the population held when Trump took office in 2025.

ICE has not clarified whether Central Valley Annex continues to hold detainees from the U.S. Marshals Service alongside immigrants. GEO Group touts the facility’s accreditation by the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, but advocates remain deeply skeptical given the company’s history of abuses.

California’s immigrant detention system is expanding aggressively, with private prison giants exploiting legal loopholes and local economic pressures to grow their empire. Meanwhile, detainees face overcrowding, poor conditions, and little oversight. This latest ICE expansion exposes how federal power and corporate profit motives combine to undermine community rights and human dignity.

We will continue tracking this story and the broader fight to hold ICE and its private contractors accountable for their role in perpetuating a brutal and inhumane immigration detention regime.