An immigration detention facility in Bakersfield that was expected to close later this month will remain open for another year, according to a federal contract made public this week.
On Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement cited “unusual and compelling urgency” in a notice explaining its justification for keeping open the 400-bed Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center. The $19.4-million contract allows private prison company GEO Group Inc. to continue running the facility through March 2020.
The Florida-based corporation, which runs 12 other immigrant detention facilities throughout the country, operates Mesa Verde under a subcontract with the nearby city of McFarland. The city voted to end that contract in December and it expires March 18.
Immigrant rights advocates said that ICE had kept them in the dark about the fate of immigrants being held there. Before the Mesa Verde contract was extended, advocates had worried that detainees there would be transferred far away from family and legal resources.
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