Immigration enforcement is supplying a long‑standing economic market for prisoners

This article about ICE detention centers is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In January 2026, during Operation Country Roads, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and state and local law enforcement detained roughly 600 immigrants across West Virginia.

Many of those arrested were held in the state’s already overpopulated jail system, which until this spring was part of a national network of immigrant detention centers.