FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 5, 2025

Media Contact: 

Ian Philabaum  | (619) 930-9791 | ian@innovationlawlab.org

ICE and CoreCivic Continue Detention at Torrance County Detention Facility Despite Expired Contract

Estancia, NM – ICE and CoreCivic are now holding people in ICE custody at the Torrance County Detention Facility without any contractual authority from the federal government to do so. Last Friday, October 31, 2025, the ICE contract at TCDF expired, and no new contract with Torrance County has been set up in its place, as a Torrance County official confirmed on Monday, November 3rd.

With the expiration of the contract, ICE’s own policies require all noncitizens and ICE equipment must be removed from the facility on or before the expiration. Yet CoreCivic continues to detain hundreds of people in ICE custody at the facility.

Advocates in and around New Mexico call on ICE to immediately comply with its own rules and release the people it is unlawfully holding at TCDF.

Even with a valid contract, TCDF has never been fit to hold people. As ICE has increased the detention population at the CoreCivic facility in 2025, long-reported human rights abuses and infrastructural failures such as sewage flooding have persisted, according to numerous recent reports from people detained. A rising number of detained individuals speaking out has also seen increased reports of racist mistreatment by CoreCivic guards, gross medical neglect, lack of drinking water, lack of law library access, retaliation for advocacy, and more.

The continued violations are consistent with those reported in 2022 by the Office of the Inspector General, the agency charged with accountability for ICE. It is thus clear that ICE and CoreCivic are fundamentally incapable of remedying these profound issues that result in daily harm to the persons detained in TCDF.

2025 also saw the release of a whistleblower report by former TCDF staff recounting rampant abuse and cover-up by authorities in charge of the prison. Further key moments from the recent and deeper history of TCDF can be found online at bit.ly/timelinetcdf.

ICE and CoreCivic cannot detain people at TCDF and they should all be released immediately.

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