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Immigration enforcement is supplying a long-standing economic market for prisoners
Immigration enforcement is supplying a long standing economic market for prisoners. Originally published by The Conversation.
By Ella Siegrist, PhD Candidate in Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis · 2026-09-05T23:02:21.736Z
West Virginia has long turned federal prisoners into state revenue. Mary Ann Kulla Owaki/The Image Bank via Getty Images In January 2026, during Operation Country Roads https://www.justice.gov/usao sdwv/pr/us attorney moore capito announces success major immigration operation west virginia , Immigration and Customs Enforcement and state and local law enforcement detained roughly 600 immigrants https://westvirginiawatch.com/2026/06/02/report disputes claims about recent ice arrests in wv says 75 of immigrants had no criminal record/ across West Virginia. Many of those arrested were held in the state’s already overpopulated jail system, which until this spring was part of a national network of immigrant detention centers. Within this market, ICE ships detainees around the country https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/jlp/vol31/iss1/1/ , paying hundreds of facilities https://doi.org/10.1111/1745 9133.12580 a per day rate for housing them. Many of these facilities are in rural communities where federal funding cuts https://www.cbpp.org/research/food assistance/snap tracker people are losing food assistance as the republican megabill have hollowed out social services, from healthcare to food stamps, leaving them desperate for economic relief. Federal immigration detention in local facilities hearkens back to earlier eras of expanding American incarceration. As a sociologist of law and punishment https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Hve9 e4AAAAJ&hl=en , I’ve explored how rural places have long built and expanded prisons to tap into federal funds during times of economic precarity. The 1876 1908 blueprint Rural incarceration isn’t new. More than a century before ICE was established, West Virginia was holding out of state federal prisoners to collect revenue – a history I reconstructed using the West Virginia Penitentiary’s administrative records. As modern prisons proliferated across the nation, major cities exported prisoners to state prisons in less populated areas. West Virginia was one of a few states – alongside Maryland and Texas – to receive these excess urban prisoners. Beginning in 1876 and lasting until around 1908, federal and District of Columbia prisoners sent to West Virginia drove an expansion of the state’s prison system. During this time, the state’s prison population grew more than sevenfold, booming from about 160 in 1876 to more than 1,200 in 1908. Controlling for population growth, the incarceration rate tripled https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual library/abstracts/united states historical corrections statistics 1850 1984 . West Virginia was paid for housing each federal prisoner, and the state’s prison administration was desperate for this revenue. Reports that I reviewed from the penitentiary’s wardens and supervisory board show that by 1908 revenue from the federal government was US$77,000 over a two year period, or the equivalent of $2.8 million in today’s dollars. Beginning in 1908, after federal prisons opened https://www.bop.gov/about/history/ in Atlanta, Georgia, and Leavenworth, Kansas, most federal prisoners were sent to these new federal prisons, and cells began to empty at the West Virginia state penitentiary. Filling empty beds The national incarceration rate – which includes both jails, for short term detention, and prisons, for sentences of more than a year – has more or less crept downward since 2010. But that decline is not even across place or institution; it has been concentrated in cities and liberal leaning states https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663917747342 that have implemented expansive criminal justice reforms and diversion courts. Meanwhile, jail stays are booming https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev criminol 011518 024601 , especially in rural and suburban places https://thebaffler.com/latest/go straight to jail norton hobbs schept . Lengthy pretrial periods and resource shortages account for much of that growth. So does the rental of jail beds to outside entities, including state departments of correction and federal immigration authorities https://www.brennancenter.org/our work/research reports/market holding humans correctional and detention bed trade . Rural communities have often vied for prisons https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6010007 , just as they lobbied for federal prisoners in the 1800s. These rural areas seek new prisons for the infusion of money and jobs into the local economy. According to sociologist John Eason https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6010007 , these facilities often function as a “state sponsored public works program for disadvantaged rural communities,” creating “perverse economic incentives for prison proliferation.” Today, as criminal justice reforms drive down prison admissions in some areas, immigration detention is filling prison and jail cells that would otherwise be empty. The number of people detained by ICE increased by 58% – or more than 25,000 people – between 2025 and 2026, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, which advocates to end mass incarceration. Expanded immigration detention https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2026.html , the group’s March 2026 report says, “accounts for virtually all of the growth in mass incarceration” since its last report. Indiana offers an example of this shift: Its Miami Correctional Facility in rural Bunker Hill had 1,000 beds it could not properly staff with a limited budget. The state now rents those beds to ICE https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2025/12/22/behind the walls of indianas ice detention facility/ for $291 per detainee per day. In the rural town of Baldwin, Michigan, in one of the state’s poorest counties, a closed prison has reopened as an ICE facility https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/08/15/ice documents reveal plan double immigrant detention space this year/ . A state legislator told The Washington Post in August 2025 that the facility was on track to become the area’s biggest employer and taxpayer. Similarly, in August 2026 officials announced that a long closed private prison in rural Minnesota will soon reopen as an ICE detention center https://www.minnpost.com/greater minnesota/2026/08/its official minnesota will have a new ice detention center appleton prison/ . As sentencing decreased across the state, the prison in Swift County, which was once one of the area’s largest employers, closed in 2010 for lack of demand. But its reopening presents an economic opportunity: Minnesota state Sen. Torrey Westrom pointed to some 450 new jobs that the facility will bring to the area.
ICE pays hundreds of facilities a daily rate to hold detainees. David Madison/Stone via Getty Images History repeats itself Following the decline of prisoner importation in the early 20th century, West Virginia ceased to receive direct federal payments for housing prisoners. But a similar practice, one fueled by immigrant detention https://westvirginiawatch.com/2025/10/09/three west virginia jails holding countrys ice detainees are overcapacity new data shows/ , has returned to the Mountain State. As immigration enforcement ramped up under the second Trump administration, West Virginia, like many states – including Ohio and Florida https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/08/us/politics/ice detention county jails sheriffs deportation.html – opened its facilities https://westvirginiawatch.com/2025/10/09/three west virginia jails holding countrys ice detainees are overcapacity new data shows/ to ICE, which paid the state $90 per day per detainee https://westvirginiawatch.com/2025/10/02/west virginia jails renting beds to ice to hold immigrant detainees making state at least 330k/ . Beginning in early 2026, federal judges ordered the release of immigrants https://westvirginiawatch.com/2026/02/05/federal judge orders release of fourth wv immigrant detainee wrongly jailed/ held in the state’s jails, finding due process violations. In late March, the regional jail system temporarily suspended accepting new immigrant detainees https://westvirginiawatch.com/2026/03/26/wv pauses putting immigrant detainees in jails after federal judges find constitutional violations/ . Nonetheless, West Virginia has continued to collaborate with federal immigration enforcement for financial gain. The state hosts a recently expanded Customs and Border Protection training center https://www.borderreport.com/hot topics/dhs opens new cpb training center in west virginia/ and will continue participating in the federal 287 g program https://www.ice.gov/identify and arrest/287g , through which local law enforcement agencies are paid to collaborate https://www.fwd.us/news/ice payouts/ with the federal government on immigration enforcement. In the past, rural states and counties have built out their carceral systems with profit from imported prisoners. Immigration detention is reviving that model. So long as states see immigration detention as a potential revenue stream, it appears that tradition will continue.
Ella Siegrist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.