Federal authorities are housing immigration detainees at an Oklahoma private prison that was once the site of the deadliest prison fight in state history.
CoreCivic, one of the nation’s largest private correctional facility operators, has struck a deal to house up to 360 detainees for Immigration Customs and Enforcement at its Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing. The prison is one of 18 CoreCivic facilities nationwide with agreements to hold immigration detainees.
Two immigration attorneys who spoke with the Frontier said clients have reported instances of inadequate access to medication.
Brenda Lozano, a Tulsa-based immigration attorney, said she has a client with diabetes who was unable to access insulin for several days upon his arrival in Cushing. Lozano said she was told the facility was waiting for a medical specialist to consider her client’s need for insulin. Her client did eventually receive the treatment, she said.
“For someone who depends on insulin daily, skipping a couple of days can be detrimental,” Lozano said.
Missing insulin doses can lead to ketoacidosis for some people with diabetes, a life-threatening complication.
A spokesperson for CoreCivic said in response that it has received no complaints about access to medication.
“The staff at Cimarron takes seriously our responsibility of providing high-quality health care and prescriptions services. This includes having no lag time in providing care when a detainee arrives at Cimarron on insulin,” a company spokesperson said in an email. “If the detainee states that they are on insulin but do not have adequate paperwork, then we call the facility they came from to obtain these orders. If there is no response from the facility they came from, then we will call one of our providers to receive orders until they are seen, typically by the provider with this chronic care they will be scheduled within 48 hours.”
Lozano also said detainees have complained about the quality of the food in Cushing.
CoreCivic pointed to a July 17 state inspection that found no health code violations in the kitchen at the Cushing prison.
“It is also worth noting that many of the employees at the facility eat the same meals daily,” a spokesperson for the company said.
About 103 people on average are detained at the Cushing prison about an hour northeast of Oklahoma City, according to federal data. Most don’t have criminal convictions. The average length of stay at the facility is 19 days.
Most detainees are temporarily held in the prison before being transferred to larger detention centers for immigration court proceedings, said Marco Hernandez, a Tulsa-based immigration attorney, who has two clients currently detained in Cushing.
The Cushing prison’s status as a temporary holding facility can delay court hearings for detainees until they are transferred somewhere else, Hernandez said. Cimarron Correctional Facility is under the jurisdiction of the immigration court in Aurora, Colorado. Hernandez said in his experience, clients at Cimarron receive notices to appear in immigration court in El Paso, Texas. When they show up to virtual hearings in the El Paso court — which does not have jurisdiction over detainees in Cushing — judges will take no action.
“Basically saying, ‘the guy’s not where he’s supposed to be, we don’t have jurisdiction,’” Hernandez said.
The 1,600-bed prison in Cushing also houses about 1,100 federal detainees for the U.S. Marshal Service.
CoreCivic pays the City of Cushing an administrative fee of $1.02 per inmate, per day they are housed at the facility. The money goes into the City of Cushing’s general fund, Assistant City Manager Derek Griffith wrote in an email to the Frontier. Cushing collected $326,735 last fiscal year.
The Cushing Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a contract modification on Feb. 24, allowing immigration detainees to be held at the facility.
The city has no oversight or authority over the facility, but Cushing Board of Commissioners Chairman B.J. Roberson said he has faith in federal partners to maintain a safe environment.
A CoreCivic spokesperson wrote in an email to the Frontier that the company is required to uphold federal immigration detention standards — a higher standard than state and local facilities — and that their facilities are subject to surprise inspections.
The Trump Administration’s goal of deporting 1 million immigrants in a year has ramped up demand for CoreCivic’s prison beds, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Damon Hininger said during an earnings call in May.
Oklahoma City’s status as a hub for air transport for Immigration Customs and Enforcement and the U.S. Marshal Service could also make CoreCivic’s now-empty prisons in Sayre and Watonga attractive places to house ICE detainees, Hininger said.
Immigration arrests in Oklahoma during the first six months of the Trump administration have already eclipsed 2024 numbers. According to federal data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the Frontier, ICE arrested 1,577 individuals in Oklahoma from January 20 to June 26. ICE arrested 1,560 in 2024.
CoreCivic — formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America — has previously faced scrutiny for violence and low staffing at its prisons.
Four inmates died during the deadliest prison fight in state history in 2015 at Cimarron Correctional Facility, when the Oklahoma Department of Corrections housed prisoners there. In 2017, five staff members were taken to the hospital following a melee between correctional officers and inmates.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections ended its contract with CoreCivic to house prisoners at the prison in Cushing in 2020, citing budget cuts.
The U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation in 2024 into CoreCivic’s Trousdale Turner Correctional Facility, which houses prisoners for the state of Tennessee. The investigation followed reports of staffing shortages, physical and sexual assault, murders and high staff turnover, according to a Department of Justice press release. The company said in a regulatory filing in May that it was cooperating with the investigation.
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