Immigration detention center to open, hire

Illegal immigration, long the bane of U.S. workers, is about to bring 162 jobs to Hall County.

Corrections Corporation of America will hire support staff to complete its staffing of the North Georgia Detention Center in Gainesville. The facility will be used to house some 500 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.

The Nashville-based company has signed a five-year agreement with Hall County and the state to operate the center and will lease the former county jail. The agreement, which took about 10 months to complete, will provide Hall County with about $2 million annually for the lease, said Phil Sutton, assistant county administrator.

“We were vacating the old jail and thought the best use for it would be as a jail,” Sutton said. “You can’t retrofit a jail to anything else, frankly.”

ICE, a division of the federal Department of Homeland Security, currently has four immigration detention facilities in Georgia and another 11 in South and North Carolina, said Barbara Gonzalez, spokeswoman for the ICE Georgia field office.

“Everyone who is in an ICE detention facility has violated immigration law,” Gonzalez said. “Some individuals have been arrested for other crimes.”

The company expects to open the facility before summer and anticipates it to be substantially occupied by the end of the year, said Louise Grant, CCA Vice President of Marketing and Communications.

CCA is the nation’s largest owner and operator of privatized correctional and detention centers, with 63 facilities in 19 states and the District of Columbia. It has had contracts to house federal immigration detainees for 25 years, Grant said.

The company will hire correctional professionals in security, facility management, accounting, health services, human resources, business management, quality assurance and education, Grant said. Openings will be posted soon on its web page, she said, but those interested can visit www.ccajob.com to apply early.

The economic impact for Gainesville and Hall County should provide a lift in the sagging local economy, where unemployment was 8.3 percent in January. CCA estimates a payroll of $7.5 million annually and has budgeted for about $350,000 in utility costs, Grant said.

CCA is currently employing 80 workers — mostly local — for a $4 million renovation of the old jail, Grant said.