Center will add 150 jobs
Published 12:46 pm Thursday, September 22, 2016
The Immigration Centers of America Farmville Detention Center, on Waterworks Road, is set to expand its facility, adding 150 new jobs.
“They’re going to add on to the other end of the building next to the kitchen,” Town Manager Gerald Spates said. “That expansion, at the request of Homeland Security, (is) because they need more bed spaces.”
Gerald Spates
The facility currently houses 650 beds, and is contracted by Immigration Customs and Enforcement to house non-violent illegal aliens detained while being processed through immigration court. The 150 new jobs will bring employment to about 400 at the center, Spates said.
“And these are all federal jobs,” he said.
The town receives $1 per day per detainee from the facility. The $21 million private facility opened in Farmville in 2010.
Last winter, the facility’s offices moved from Waterworks Road to downtown Farmville.
Will Allen, of Harper Associates, said the firm had no comment in response to an email sent to Allen and Russell Harper, the registered agent of Immigration Centers of America-Farmville LLC.
“We are always pleased to have existing industries looking to expand that’s going to provide more jobs,” Mayor David Whitus said.
