Torrance County Commission extends contract with ICE officials
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TORRANCE COUNTY, New Mexico (KOAT) — The Torrance County Board of County commissioners held a meeting to vote on extending its contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CoreCivic on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. The extension of the agreement will be a seven-month period from April 1st, 2025, to October 31, 2025.
CoreCivic is a company which owns and manages private prisons and detention centers. Chair Ryan Schwebach, Vice Chair Kevin McCall and Linda Jaramillo voted unanimously in favor to extend its contract during Wednesday’s meeting.
According to Immigrant Rights advocates and attorneys, the facility has a yearslong history of exploiting both the people detained inside and workers who operate it, while profiting off human suffering. Several advocates and attorneys were in attendance to voice concerns in support of migrant detainees at the Torrance County Detention Facility.
“Since the reopening of the Torrance County Detention facility in 2017, the community has documented persistent human rights abuse, due process violations and unlivable conditions at the facility. We have consistently escalated these persuasive issues to the county, ICE and CoreCivic,” Immigration Law Center managing attorney Sophia Genovese expressed during Wednesday’s meeting.
“Instead of rectifying these problems, attorneys, activists and people detained at TDCF have been retaliated against. These problems not only persist, they have worsened,” Genovese said.
While Commissioner Linda Jaramillo voted ‘yes’ to extend its contract, she expressed willingness to visit the facility.
“So, I’ve been listening to the accounts of mistreatment at the prison, and I know Commissioner Schwebach has been visiting the prison before me, and I want—is it okay if I visit the prison? Can I visit with these detainees or is that against policy?” Jaramillo asked.
“No. As a matter of fact, the commissioner is one of the few individuals that visit that prison at any given time unannounced,” Schwebach said.
“So, I’d like to visit more as I possibly can to visit the detainees, because you hear all of these and you don’t know what’s true and not true, and what’s exaggerated—whatever. So, I would like to make a point of visiting the detainees more over the period of this contract,” Jaramillo said.
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