The long-shuttered Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga is coming back to life. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections, along with federal immigration authorities, recently signed a $100 million contract with the private prison company CoreCivic to house detained migrants at its Blaine County location.
The $100,000 represents Oklahoma taxpayer money, whether it comes directly from the state's coffers or the federal government's.
Despite sitting empty since 2010, the Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga is maintained and ready for "seamless reactivation," per a press release aimed at CoreCivic's investors. While the contract took effect late last month, the company doesn't expect to house detainees until early next year. The contract term is for five years with the possibility of extensions.
The facility has the capacity to hold 2,160 people, and under this agreement, is meant exclusively for those arrested and detained for federal immigration violations. It is one of a handful of detention centers CoreCivic is reactivating in the region for that purpose.
Other facilities revamped by the company are located broadly in the southern and midwestern parts of the country. According to a research and analysis firm called ZacksSCR, which regularly studies CoreCivic, those locations include:
- The South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilly, Texas – 2,400 beds
- The California City Immigration Processing Center in California City, California – 2,560 beds
- The Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, Kansas – 1,033 beds
- The West Tennessee Detentional Facility in Mason, Tennessee – 600 beds
Patrick Swindle is CoreCivic's president and chief operating officer. He says in the press release that the contracts are expected to yield hundreds of millions in annual profits for investors as the detention needs of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, continue to increase.
"Including the new contract awards at three of our other facilities …we have signed new contracts aggregating 6,353 beds across our four facilities, all of which were idle at the beginning of the year, with approximately $325 million of annual revenue once the facilities are fully activated," says Swindle. "Reactivating the Diamondback facility is another step towards realizing the growth potential of the Company."
Diamondback brings the total new beds dedicated to holding arrested migrants up to around 8,700, between the five revamped locations. And, regardless of warnings from advocates and state policy thinktanks, there is more capacity growth coming in this state as CoreCivic eyes its North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre for immigration detention, too.
The company has already started hiring correctional officers and other staff.
Swindle and company have a reason to prepare.
Oklahoma Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton said in a press conference this week that every trooper within the Oklahoma Highway Patrol — around 730 officers — is trained and certified to interrogate and arrest people for suspicion of immigration violations.
"It's called a 287 (g) contract that we signed with ICE to be able to delegate that authority to us," Tipton said. "And we've now gone through the process of certifying every state trooper in the state to have this credentialing. So now any state trooper on daily patrol, when they come across some type of immigration violation, they have that delegated authority through ICE."
And the highway patrol has been hard at work using its newly delegated powers, as the reason Tipton hosted a press conference to begin with was to tout OHP's recent crackdown on truck drivers on Oklahoma Interstates and weigh stations as part of Gov. Kevin Stitt's Operation Guardian.
"Approximately 120 illegal aliens were detained for immigration violations," Tipton said. "That's nearly 25% of the people that we came into contact with."
