Q&A: Rural places have always played a part in U.S. immigration and deportation

Brianna Nofil

When the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency began conducting large immigration raids outside metropolitan areas in 2025, there was not enough housing space for detainees, so U.S. Immigration Services worked to address the issue by partnering with rural law enforcement. The partnership isn't new -- USIS has long relied on rural towns to help it jail and deport illegal immigrants.

In her Q&A with Betsy Froiland of The Daily Yonder, historian and author of the 2024 book The Migrant’s Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration, Brianna Nofil "shares her research on how immigrant detention infrastructure has impacted small towns across America." An edited version of their interview is shared below.

Q: Can you begin by sharing how rural places initially became involved in the conversation of immigrant detention?
A: Almost from its inception, the U.S. Immigration Service relied on rural communities to help it arrest and deport illegal migrants. When USIS stepped up its deportation efforts in the early 1900s, its leadership discovered that USIS lacked enough housing for all its detainees. Nofil explains, "So they began talking to sheriffs. They say to these local sheriffs, ‘listen,' immigration law enforcement isn’t your job, but if you are willing to rent us some beds in your local jail, we will pay you for that.'"

At that time, many rural sheriffs didn't have strong feelings about immigration; however, they did "see an opportunity to make some money," Nofil adds. "So some rural communities start renting jail beds to the Immigration Service. This gives the Immigration Service flexibility. Migrant routes are constantly changing. . . .Control of local rural jails allows them to pivot infrastructure as the movement of people changes."

Q: Does immigrant detention change in rural places by the end of the 20th century?
Yes. In the 1980s, USIS "decided to build the first immigration prisons, co-run by the Immigration Service and the Bureau of Prisons, from the ground up. So they’re no longer just borrowing infrastructure: they’re actually building permanent deportation infrastructure," Nofil told the Yonder. "There are massive internal battles about where they should put the first site because it’s going to set the tone for what this new detention system is going to look like."

In the end, USIS decides on rural Oakdale, Louisiana. Nofil explains, "They figure their work would be more distant from legal aid, even more out of the limelight. They’re quite explicit about the value they see rural space having in terms of limiting both public attention and migrants’ access to assistance."

Q: How have different rural communities been impacted by these detention sites economically?
At least in the beginning, when ICE really needs a location, some towns do reap some economic benefits, but the benefits don't always last. Nofil adds, "This is not something that any community can reliably bank on because they’re basically being asked to predict future federal behavior and future global migration flows, which is impossible. That makes it a particularly treacherous industry to link a community’s financial future to."

Read the entire interview here.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement restaurant raid splits a small town in Trump country

Mt. Vernon townspeople remain divided over
the ICE raid at Pancho's Tacos.

After ICE raided a favorite Mexican food spot in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and hauled off several of its employees, a heated town debate erupted over the incident. The small community of 17,400 people in "deep-red Trump country" is still grappling with the fallout, report Cameron McWhirter and Ruth Simon of The Wall Street Journal.

While the raid at Pancho's Tacos was over in roughly 30 minutes, arguments over the justification or lack thereof for raiding a small-town restaurant and arresting five of its allegedly illegal workers have raged on.

Some Mt. Vernon residents "fully support how the operation took place," McWhirter writes. But other residents voiced concern that ICE tactics aren't the way immigration enforcement ought to work -- especially not in small-town America.

Once word of the raid spread through rumor and social media, online comments on all sides of the incident began pouring in. One commentator wrote, "'I used to remember how people loved one another and accepted one another despite their differences,'" the Journal reports. "But another wrote: 'This is EXACLTY (sic) what we voted for. Send all illegals home.'"

Beyond the spiraling debate, the raid was especially worrisome for area dairy farmers, who rely on an immigrant workforce to do the hard labor required in dairy farming. Noel Alden, a Mount Vernon lawyer, told the Journal, "Neighbors, friends, people who serve them are being whisked away. . . .They haven’t even started on farms yet.”

Some residents in rural Mason, Tenn., don't want a migrant detention center in their town, but it's coming anyway

At times, the town meeting devolved into the mayor, left,
shouting at citizens. (YouTube, WREG, Memphis, Tenn.)

Despite raucous pushback from residents and activists during a recent town meeting in Mason, Tenn., the evening ended with the mayor and council members approving agreements to transition the town's closed prison into a migrant detention facility managed by a private company.

"The first vote of the meeting resulted in approval for a contract with CoreCivic to resume operating the facility, which was closed in 2021," Adrian Sainz of The Associated Press reports.  "The second vote was to approve an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

Eddie Noeman, Mason's mayor, who emigrated from Egypt, saw reopening the facility as a way to boost the town's lagging economy. "Noeman said he wanted to bring jobs and economic development to the town," Sainz explains. "With a population of about 1,300, Mason is located about 40 miles northeast of Memphis. When it was open, the prison was the town’s largest employer."

Before the start of the contentious meeting, Mason board member Virginia Rivers said she was not in favor of the town being connected to an ICE facility. She told Sainz, "I don’t like what ICE stands for, how they treat the people.” 

Once the contracts were approved, CoreCivic released a statement touting all the benefits the center will contribute to the town, such as good-paying jobs and tax generation.

Overall, CoreCivic has a darker reputation in Tennessee. Sainz reports, "The company has spent more than $4.4 million 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."