A private prison operator regularly falsified documents during federal inspections of a
The letter urged Congress to investigate what it called "likely fraud" and "abusive conditions" at the Torrance County Detention Facility that allegedly violated the county's contract with U.S.
Located about an hour southeast of Albuquerque, TCDF opened in 1990 as a private detention center and was designated an ICE facility in 2019 under an agreement with the county. The letter, seen by Bloomberg News, was sent to Congress by the Government Accountability Project, an advocacy organization representing the whistleblowers; it didn't say when its clients worked at TCDF but said their experience at the facility spanned a decade.
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In an email, a CoreCivic spokesman said the company had not received the letter. "We vehemently deny these allegations and have no evidence that would support that our staff at the Torrance County Detention Facility (TCDF) falsified documents or colluded with inspectors during any federal inspection," said Ryan Gustin, CoreCivic's director of public affairs. He pointed to audits by ICE's Office of Detention Oversight that gave the facility a "good" rating for the 2024 fiscal year and a "superior" one in 2025, as well as its accreditation by the American Correctional Association, a trade organization he said gave TCDF a score of 100% in April 2024.
An ICE spokesperson on Wednesday said the agency "continuously reviews and enhances civil detention operations to ensure aliens are treated humanely, protected from harm, provided appropriate medical and mental health care, and receive the rights and protections to which they are entitled."
Trump's Plans
The allegations come as President Donald Trump's promised mass deportation plans are already running up against ICE detention capacity. To house detainees, the agency relies on contracts with state and local governments or companies such as CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison operators in the U.S. ICE is detaining an average of more than 41,000 people per day for the month of February, according to the agency's data, and White House border czar Tom Homan has said the administration will ultimately need to more than double that number.
That will put even more strain on facilities like TCDF, which immigration advocates say received more than 100 ICE detainees from the Northeast earlier this month, as first reported by GBH News and the Boston Globe.
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In interviews with Bloomberg this month, two detainees said it was obvious to them that staffing remained a problem. One, a 50-year-old from Venezuela, said he had noticed a decrease in the number of guards from when he arrived about six months ago. Another, a 46-year-old from Mexico detained in a different unit, said his section of the facility has recently been kept on lockdown longer than usual and that guards have been making rounds less frequently. Gustin said CoreCivic works "to ensure that all critical posts are filled at TCDF."
Alleged Collusion
In the letter to Congress, the TCDF whistleblowers said they knew of a warden colluding with a federal inspector to falsify a safety audit and that conditions were regularly misrepresented during site inspections in order to appear compliant with ICE standards. They also alleged that staff lacked the proper background clearance required to work with ICE detainees, and that trainings were falsified.
CoreCivic also mismanaged the facility's medical operations, including mental health care, the letter alleged. The company's medical director denied requests from physicians at the facility to transport detainees who needed to go to the hospital, the whistleblowers said. And company leadership allowed a doctor to treat detainees despite multiple complaints that he smelled of alcohol on the job, they said. The doctor has since resigned and moved out of state, according to the letter.
"CoreCivic's mismanagement constitutes gross waste of taxpayer dollars, indicates likely fraud, and creates abusive conditions that harm employees and noncitizens alike," the letter said. "Further, the violations and abuses detailed in this complaint were perpetrated by or conducted with the knowledge of CoreCivic's and ICE's leadership."
The letter was sent to Senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin, the chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as Senators Rand Paul and Gary Peters, who hold those positions on the Senate Homeland Security Committee. A spokesperson for Grassley said his office would "studiously verify and assess the allegations before making a determination regarding future investigative steps."
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CoreCivic is preparing to reopen and expand detention facilities in response to increased demand for ICE capacity. On an earnings call last week, Chief Executive Officer Damon Hininger said CoreCivic has offered ICE an additional 28,000 beds that could earn the company $1.5 billion in revenue. CoreCivic is considering reopening a detention center in Dilley, Texas, that was shut down last summer after ICE called it "the most expensive facility in the national detention network."
Repeated Warnings
Under the agreement between Torrance County and ICE, the county receives $138 per person each day, according to county records. That money is then passed through to CoreCivic to provide for the care of people in custody.
The contract, called an intergovernmental service agreement, allows state and local governments to rent out bed space in their jail or prison facilities for use by the federal government for a fee. These kinds of agreements allow ICE and other federal agencies to tap detention space quickly because they don't have to follow federal contracting rules that require more documentation.
County commissioners in December voted 2-1 to extend the agreement with ICE through the end of March despite repeated warnings over staffing levels and facility conditions.
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In March 2022, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security issued a management alert urging all ICE detainees be removed from the facility immediately, based on problems identified during an unannounced inspection a month earlier. A chief concern was what it called "critical staffing shortages," with just 54% of the required positions filled. CoreCivic disputed the inspector general's findings, accusing it of intentionally misrepresenting evidence. In its response to the inspector general, ICE also disagreed with the conclusions and said the agency had worked "continually to enhance and improve conditions at TCDF."
In the summer of 2022, Kesley Vial, 23-year-old Brazilian ICE detainee, died at TCDF after hanging himself from a shelf with a bedsheet. In a report published by ICE after his death, the agency's external reviews and analysis unit said it had found that eight staff members lacked documentation proving they had completed required training. The report also noted that Vial's record claimed that TCDF medical staff had given him medication on Aug. 18, 2022, even though Vial had been transferred to the hospital the day before.
