Which specific ICE detention centers are owned outright by GEO Group or CoreCivic and where are they located?
Executive summary
Public reporting and company disclosures show that both CoreCivic and GEO Group own and control multiple facilities that are now in ICE use or targeted for reopening, but open-source accounts vary between naming companies as owners, operators, or contractors — meaning a precise “owned outright” roster is limited to facilities explicitly identified as company-owned in the cited reporting [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. CoreCivic — named, company‑owned ICE facilities and their locations
CoreCivic is explicitly identified in contemporary reporting as the owner/operator of several high‑profile sites being used or reopened for ICE custody: the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas — a 2,400‑bed family detention center that CoreCivic agreed to re‑open for ICE (Dilley, Texas) [1] [6]; the California City facility in Kern County (California City Immigration Processing Center), which CoreCivic re‑opened and confirmed was receiving ICE detainees (California City, Kern County, CA) [3] [4]; and the dormant Huerfano County Correctional Center in Walsenburg (Walsenburg, Colorado), which reporting identifies as CoreCivic‑owned and under consideration for ICE use [2] [7].
2. GEO Group — named, company‑owned ICE facilities and their locations
Reporting and GEO’s own site identify several ICE processing and detention sites GEO owns or controls and has moved to reopen or operate for ICE: Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, which GEO announced it would reopen as a roughly 1,000‑bed immigration detention center (Newark, NJ) [6] [8]; the Maverick County Detention Center in Eagle Pass, Texas, which GEO opened and has long listed among its U.S. secure services (Eagle Pass, TX) [9] [5]; and the Aurora ICE Processing Center in Aurora, Colorado, which is reported as an ICE detention facility operated by GEO (Aurora, CO) [10] [2]. GEO’s locations page and multiple news stories also list other secure facilities under GEO’s control, though the reporting does not always distinguish between ownership, operation, or long‑term lease arrangements [5].
3. Facilities widely reported as company‑run but with mixed ownership/operation language
Several high‑capacity sites appear throughout coverage as CoreCivic‑ or GEO‑run for ICE yet are described with different legal relationships — operated under contract, reopened under amended contracts, or maintained as “idle” company inventory rather than explicitly catalogued as company‑owned real estate in the provided sources. Examples include the Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, Kansas, which CoreCivic entered a preliminary agreement to re‑open (Leavenworth, KS) [1], and a set of GEO “reopened” sites such as Delaney Hall’s broader expansion plans and other facilities GEO announced it had reactivated or could reactivate [1] [6]. Those sources emphasize operational control and reopening agreements more than clear title records [1] [6].
4. Caveats, gaps in the record, and why “owned outright” is hard to assert broadly
Public reporting and company materials frequently mix terms — “operate,” “manage,” “reopen,” “own,” and “contract with ICE” — and many articles focus on contracts and operations rather than land‑title documents, so the available sources allow confident, cited identification of CoreCivic’s ownership of Dilley, California City and Walsenburg (as reported) and GEO’s ownership/operation of Delaney Hall, Maverick County, and Aurora processing center, but do not provide a comprehensive, legally verified nationwide list of every facility “owned outright” by either firm; confirming ownership for other sites would require property‑level title searches or corporate asset disclosures beyond the cited reporting [1] [2] [5] [6] [9] [3] [4]. The reporting also reveals an implicit commercial incentive — both companies advertise idle beds and reopened facilities to ICE and investors — which can bias coverage toward capacity and contracts rather than clear statements about legal ownership of real estate [1] [8].