ICE Awards Federal Contract To Expand Detention Facility In Conroe

CONROE, TX -- A new detention center designed to house up to 1,000 undocumented immigrants is expected to built in Conroe by 2019.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded a $110 million federal contract to the GEO Group to build and manage the facility.

The Geo Group began operaing the 1,517 bed Corley Detention Facility in Conroe, back in 2007.

The facility houses federal pretrial detainees from the U.S. Marshal’s Service and undocumented immigrants from ICE.

The new facility, which will be built in the 800 block of Hilbig Road, will sit on more than 20 acres along a stretch of road that includes the Corley Detention Facility, and the Montgomery County Jail.

Once it is built, the facility will complement the Corley Detention Facility, will bring an estimated $44 million in annual revenue, officials said.

“We are very appreciative of the continued confidence placed in our company by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” GEO’s CEO George C. Zoley said in a statement. “We’re pleased to have been able to build on our longstanding partnership with ICE to help the agency meet its need for detention beds.”

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The announcement of the facility construction on April 13, seemed to be a surprise to Conroe Mayor Toby Powell, who said learned of the project through a news article the following day.

However, documents indicate that the city issued a building permit for the facility on April 13, the same day the official announcement was made.

Powell told the Conroe Courier that the city does not need another facility to house federal and ICE detainees.

Powell, who was elected mayor in 2015, wasn’t in elected office when the Montgomery County Commissioners approved a resolution in 2013 supporting the expansion of the detention center.

Pablo Paez, GEO's vice president of corporate relations, said the company has enjoy a good and transparent relationship with the city and the county since 2012, and that despite claims to the contrary, there is nothing sneaky about the deal.

"This has been a pretty transparent process," Paez said. "We have maintained contact with the city and the county since then."

GEO officials actually began the procurement process with a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) in 2013, during the Obama Administation, which was followed up in 2015 with a request for proposal for the project, Paez said.

Montgomery County Judge Craig Doyal, who was a county commissioner in 2013, told the Conroe Courier that most people don’t realize the facility is there.

“These are immigration detainees. It's not like it's a prison where you have hardened criminals there.,” he said.”There are immigration detainees, and then they're moved on out. To me, at that location, it's a positive for the county and for the city. It'll bring more jobs to the city with very little impact to the city. I don't see a negative impact at all."

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