Charlotte advocates rally against ICE detention centers

TIA DUFOUR

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conduct a sweep in Los Angeles, California, on June 12, 2025. Immigrant rights activists rallied in Charlotte on June 5, 2026, to demand North Carolina lawmakers block opening of federal immigration detention centers in the state.

Charlotte immigrant rights advocates rallied Friday against the opening of federal detention centers in North Carolina.

More than 60 people gathered at the Charles R. Jones Federal Building to oppose proposed U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement facilities in Concord, Greensboro and Winton, a small town in Hertford County, 300 miles northeast of Charlotte.

GEO Group, a for-profit prison corporation with a regional office in Charlotte, plans to manage the facilities, which advocates say could hold up to 1,500 detainees each. One of the sites is Rivers Correctional Institution a 1,320-bed private prison in Hertford County that has been closed since 2021. Geo Group, which owns the property, is negotiating with the Trump administration to reopen it as an ICE detention site.  

There are nearly 70,000 people in an estimated 270 ICE-managed lockups across the U.S., according to the American Immigration Council. About a third of inmates are in Geo Group-run facilities and former company executive David Venturella is ICE’s new acting director. 

“We do not want detention centers opening right here in our state,” said Maryann Ruiz, community organizer coordinator at Carolina Migrant Network, which collaborated with Indivisible CLT and Stop Detention Centers NC to host the rally.

Immigration enforcement has evolved since the second Trump administration took control of the nation’s executive branch last year. ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents have conducted military-style enforcement sweeps across the country, including Charlotte and Raleigh, and remanded immigrants – including some U.S. citizens – to detention centers. Since the start of the second Trump administration, more than 40 people have died in immigration detention.

“One person dies in ICE detention every week,” said state Rep. Julia Greenfield, a Charlotte Democrat. “That is not a statistic. That is a human being, someone’s mother, father, child, someone who came here seeking what all of us want: safety, opportunity, and dignity.”

Said the Rev. Glencie Rhedrick, co-chair of Charlotte Clergy for Justice: “My faith informs me that every person bears inherent dignity and worth, and that dignity does not disappear because of immigrant status, language, race, or country of origin. When mothers are separated from their children, when families live in fear and when detention centers become substitutes for compassion, we are called to ask ourselves, what kind of community are we creating?”

The federal enforcement surge has created a market for detention centers, where for-profit companies are stepping in. According to Geo Group’s 2025 annual report, the company which also runs state prisons, derives nearly half of its revenue from federal ICE contracts.

“Geo Group profits went from $32 million in 2024 to $254 million in 2025,” said UNC Charlotte professor Tina Shull, an immigration enforcement historian and author of “Detention Empire,“ adding … “Today, there’s a historic number of over 60,000 people in immigration detention. Over 1,000 people are on hunger and labor strikes across the country, including at Delaney Hall in New Jersey,” a Geo Group-managed detention center in Newark where multiple protests have been held. There are approximately 300 immigrants inside that facility, including several who have conducted hunger strikes to protest poor sanitary conditions and mistreatment.

The Charlotte protesters urged state lawmakers to prohibit immigrant detention centers in North Carolina, citing the pushback in communities across the country against such facilities as well as confrontations between federal agents and civilians.

“We demand our lawmakers take all actions within their power to stop ICE detention and expansion across our state urgently,” said Cristiano Mendez, a criminal and immigration attorney Mendez. “We’re calling on our state legislatures to demand policies that [don’t] allow ICE to move into our communities and establish legal barriers that keep ICE and CBP cruelty and terror tactics out of our state.”

Said Rep. Jordan Lopez, the first Afro-Latino lawmaker in North Carolina and the son of immigrants: “We, as lawmakers, understand that in a democratic society laws must be enforced, but as I have stated repeatedly over the past several months, the how you enforce the law matters.” 

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