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Board member Virginia Rivers said she had not received the contracts as of the afternoon. Rivers said she does not support turning the prison into an ICE facility because “I don’t like what ICE stands for, how they treat the people.â€�

The American Civil Liberties Union said Monday that it had “serious concerns about transparency and accountability in the decision-making process.�

Rivers said citizens should be allowed to gather at a public meeting to ask questions and “have a say about what is coming to their town.�

The 600-bed West Tennessee Detention Facility has been closed since 2021, after President Joe Biden ordered the Department of Justice to stop renewing contracts with private detention facilities. In January, President Donald Trump reversed Biden’s order.

CoreCivic said in a statement that the ICE facility would create nearly 240 new jobs with benefits such as medical insurance and a tuition assistance scholarship fund. CoreCivic is currently advertising openings there including for detention officers, at a pay rate of $26.50 per hour.

The facility would also generate about $325,000 in annual property tax revenue and $200,000 for Mason that could be used for schools, infrastructure improvements and other projects, the company said.

“The services we provide help the government solve problems in ways it could not do alone — to help create safer communities by assisting with the current immigration challenges, dramatically improve the standard of care for vulnerable people, and meet other critical needs efficiently and innovatively,� CoreCivic said.

Tennessee’s corrections agency has fined CoreCivic $44.7 million across four prisons from 2022 through February, including for understaffing violations. Records obtained by The Associated Press also show the company has to settle about 80 lawsuits and out-of-court complaints alleging mistreatment — including at least 22 inmate deaths — at four Tennessee prisons and two jails from 2016 through September 2024.

The state comptroller released scathing audits in , and .

The Brentwood, Tennessee-based company has defended itself by pointing to industrywide problems with hiring and keeping workers. CoreCivic has said it offers hiring incentives and strategically backfills with workers from other facilities nationally.

With a population of about 1,300, Mason is located in Tipton County, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Memphis. When it was open, the prison was town’s largest employer and an important economic engine.

In July, Florida opened an immigration detention facility at an isolated airfield in the Everglades dubbed “ .� and have filed lawsuits against the facility, where detainees allege that they have been forced to go without adequate food and medical care, barred from , held without any charges and unable to get a federal immigration court to hear their cases.

has touted the facility’s as fit for the “worst of the worst,â€� while Department of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½land Security Secretary has said it can for other state-run immigration holding facilities.

The administration of Republican Gov. has said it is preparing to build at a Florida National Guard training center in the northern part of the state.

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Associated Press writer Jonathan Mattise contributed from Nashville, Tennessee.