By Colleen Heild
Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The owners of the Lea County Correctional Facility near Hobbs are shutting down the medium-security prison after 27 years, laying off more than 200 employees by the end of June while the state moves out an estimated 1,000 inmates to other New Mexico prisons.
But there could be a new purpose for the 350,000-square-foot private prison owned by the GEO Group: holding detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Neither ICE nor the Florida-based GEO Group responded to Journal requests for comment on Tuesday, but the American Civil Liberties Union reported in December that the GEO Group had proposed the Lea County Correctional Facility as an ICE detention facility for the federal agency’s El Paso Field Office.
Asked whether anyone else is interested in taking over the facility, John Caldwell, Lea County attorney, told the commission at a May 8 meeting that the GEO Group “has spoken with the federal government, but nothing specific.”
In January, the GEO Group notified the state it would not seek to extend operations beyond November 2025. It was a “unilateral decision not to renew its operating contract,” said Brittany Roembach, a state Corrections Department spokeswoman, who called the action “an unexpected development.”
She said the inmates housed at Hobbs will be sent to the Corrections Department’s eight other state-operated facilities in Clayton, Springer, Santa Fe, Grants, Santa Rosa, Los Lunas, Roswell and Las Cruces, where the facilities will still be under capacity.
Meanwhile, the state Department of Workforce Solutions is hoping to be allowed by the GEO Group to meet with employees facing layoffs to help with issues such as education and training opportunities and unemployment insurance.
The Hobbs prison was built by GEO Group’s precursor, Wackenhut, when New Mexico’s prison overcrowding led to the state Corrections Department sending hundreds of inmates out of state to Texas and Arizona. The state at the time had only 3,050 beds for 5,055 inmates. But since 2018, New Mexico’s prison population has had a sharp decline, said the New Mexico Sentencing Commission in a recent report. More recently, there’s been an uptick in the number of inmates sentenced to prison on state charges.
The private prison near Hobbs was built on the grounds of a World War II airbase and has housed male offenders since May 1998. The GEO Group’s contract was with Lea County, and the state’s agreement to house inmates there was through the county.
In January, after announcing it would exit its contract, the GEO Group approached the state about buying the prison, initially proposing a $240 million price tag, then lowering it to $175 million.
“After careful fiscal analysis, the state determined these purchase options did not represent the best use of taxpayer resources,” said Alisa Tafoya Lucero, Corrections Cabinet secretary, in a news release. “This transition marks the successful completion of the NMCD’s strategic initiative to bring prison operations under state control, a years-long effort that previously returned facilities in Clayton, Santa Rosa and Grants to state management.”
The department still houses a group of inmates under contract at the Otero County Prison Facility for specialized treatment but “no longer relies on private operators for core prison operations, strengthening direct oversight and accountability.”
Lea County officials said earlier this month that the county had no need for the prison facility.
In recent months, according to the GEO Group website, the company has entered into or modified three contracts for ICE detention centers in other states. The company operates 20 facilities for ICE facilities nationwide, according to the ACLU.
A document the ACLU obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed the GEO Group mentioned the Lea County Correctional Facility in response to an ICE request for information last September as one that “might be available for ICE use.”
For New Mexico counties two decades ago, the appeal of private prisons was a simple matter of economic development. For instance, Lea County wanted the Hobbs prison built as a way to diversify and help stabilize its boom-or-bust oil economy.
Caldwell couldn’t be reached Tuesday to comment as to the impact on the county of the prison’s closure and the loss of jobs there.
Meanwhile, Stacy Johnston , public information officer for the state Department of Workforce Solutions, said the Corrections Department is having a hiring event on May 29 , from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Southeastern New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy in Hobbs.
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