A shuttered West Texas detention complex with room for 2,329 people will reopen as a federal immigration processing center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under a 10-year agreement announced on Monday, November 2 — one of the largest single additions to ICE detention capacity in Texas, the state that already holds more ICE detainees than any other. The City of Big Spring has entered into a 10-year intergovernmental service agreement with ICE for the activation of the Big Spring Complex, the GEO Group announced, and GEO will provide the support services that keep the facility running day to day.
The complex is made of two GEO-owned facilities on the same West Texas site: the 1,404-bed Flightline Facility and the 925-bed Cedar Hill Facility. Under the agreement, ICE gets the exclusive use of the complex, and GEO's support services are expected to include security, maintenance and food services, as well as access to recreational amenities, medical care and transportation services, the company said. The financial wire service report carried by Morningstar and Dow Jones confirmed the same terms independently on Monday morning: a 10-year contract, 2,329 beds, and about $200 million in expected annual revenue in the first full year of operations.
A complex that has been closed since 2021
The Big Spring facilities have been closed since 2021, after GEO's contracts there with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons expired, Bisnow reported, citing NewsWest 9. The site is in Big Spring, the Howard County seat in West Texas on Interstate 20, roughly midway between Midland and Abilene — a corridor driven daily by long-haul trucks moving between the Permian Basin oil fields and the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Reactivating an existing, purpose-built secure complex lets ICE add capacity far faster than building a new facility, and GEO framed the deal in exactly those terms.
Source: Bisnow, Nov 2, 2026 — GEO Group to reopen 2,329-bed immigration facility in Texas
"We expect that our Big Spring Complex in Texas will play an important role in helping meet the need for increased federal immigration processing center bedspace," said George C. Zoley, GEO's chairman, chief executive officer and founder. "We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to assist the federal government in meeting its immigration enforcement priorities." GEO, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, describes itself as a diversified government services provider specialising in secure facilities, processing centers and community reentry centers; worldwide, it owns or provides support services for 97 facilities totalling approximately 76,000 beds, with a workforce of up to about 20,000 employees.
Texas already holds the most ICE detainees in the country
The reopening lands in a detention system that has been expanding all year. The number of people in immigration detention rose from 60,311 in April to 65,765 in July, according to TRAC Immigration data cited by Bisnow, and Texas held 16,450 ICE detainees in July — the most of any state. A 2,329-bed complex therefore adds capacity equal to roughly one-seventh of Texas's entire July detainee population, in a single location, under a single operator. It is also the second large ICE facility contract GEO has announced in about a week: the company separately secured a 10-year contract, worth about $140 million a year, to continue managing the 1,635-bed Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington — a different facility and a different deal that Awaaz Punjab reported separately. Together the two contracts are expected to generate about $340 million in annual revenue for GEO.
Source: Bisnow, Nov 2, 2026 — GEO Group to reopen 2,329-bed immigration facility in Texas
The Big Spring announcement also follows a much larger federal purchase last month, when the Department of Homeland Security paid GEO $950 million for three facilities in Adelanto, California, Bisnow reported — part of a wider federal strategy of buying and reactivating detention capacity rather than building from scratch, with GEO and CoreCivic as the primary private operators. GEO's own announcement carries the standard caution that the revenue figure is a forward-looking expectation based on current assumptions, not a guarantee.
Source: Bisnow, Nov 2, 2026 — GEO Group to reopen 2,329-bed immigration facility in Texas
Confirmed by GEO and Dow Jones reporting: the 10-year term, the 2,329 beds (1,404 Flightline + 925 Cedar Hill), ICE's exclusive use, GEO's service list, and the roughly $200 million first-full-year revenue expectation. NOT announced: an opening date, a hiring number for Big Spring, or when the first detainees would arrive. Awaaz Punjab will not guess at those — watch for the activation timeline from ICE or the city.
What it means locally — and for diaspora readers
For Big Spring, a city of roughly 27,000 people, a reopened 2,329-bed complex is a major employer and a major change: facilities of this size typically draw staff from across Howard County and the surrounding Permian Basin communities, and the contract runs a full decade. For immigrant families in Texas — including the state's large Punjabi and South Asian communities in Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth and along the I-20 and I-10 trucking corridors — the practical significance is detention geography: processing centers decide where a detained person is held, which immigration court hears the case, and how far family members and lawyers must travel to visit or represent them. Added West Texas capacity means more Texas cases are likely to be processed inside Texas rather than transferred out of state, though ICE has announced no transfer policy tied to this contract.
What happens next
GEO did not announce an activation date in Monday's release, and neither ICE nor the City of Big Spring had published a start date by Monday afternoon. The steps to watch are a city or ICE statement on the reopening timeline, local hiring announcements for security, medical, food-service and transport roles, and GEO's next quarterly disclosures, which should show when Big Spring revenue begins. This report is based on GEO Group's announcement via Business Wire, Dow Jones reporting carried by Morningstar, and Bisnow's account, which drew on NewsWest 9 for the complex's history and TRAC Immigration for detention numbers.