‘Zombie Prisons’: How ICE Detention Is Raising Troubling Facilities From the Dead
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As soon as Shelly Keene heard rumblings that North Lake Correctional Center in rural Michigan would reopen as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, she got to work on a list of about 75 people who needed jobs and would be a good match.
Keene is the executive director at Michigan Works! West Central, a workforce development program. The detention center is in Lake County, one of the state’s poorest communities. She hoped the reopening would bring high-paying jobs, plus spillover economic benefits, to the area.
There was a reason her list of potential employees at the detention center was so long and so easy to compile: This is the fourth time the facility has opened in 26 years, creating a boom-and-bust cycle of layoffs and hiring blitzes. Since 1999, it has been a Michigan state juvenile facility, held adult prisoners for states that ran out space in their own systems, and served as a Bureau of Prisons facility.
