CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) may be eying the now-closed Augusta Correctional Center in Craigsville, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

In a response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act filed over the summer, the Department of Homeland Security revealed it is considering converting the former correctional facility into an ICE detention center.

“It sits on an agricultural site and it had a capacity of over 1,200 and would severely expand immigration detention here in Virginia where we already have a two detention centers which combined have a capacity for about 2000 people,” Senior ACLU immigration attorney Sophia Gregg told Cville Right Now. “What we can see from the FOIA here is there appears to be two private operators both suggesting they would purchase and run this property as an immigration detention center.”

One of the complaints the ACLU has of the documents it received through its FOIA request is that they’re heavily redacted. Gregg said the organization plans to go to court to challenge the redactions.

“Little else is known because of the redactions regarding how many people they think they could have the capacity to detain there and what services would be provided,” Gregg said. “Given what we know about other ICE detention centers, they’re operating, or not, in compliance with general detention regulations for the health and safety of those individuals who are detained.”

The Craigsville property is listed for sale as a “unique 840± acre property ” which “includes a decommissioned correctional center, manufacturing facilities, warehousing/support spaces and working cattle farm.”

The Virginia Department of Corrections closed the facility in 2024 after revealing an ongoing staffing shortage.

According to the ACLU release, “At least two of the six facilities in question are former correctional facilities with an established history of violence, sexual abuse, and corruption.”

Specifically about the Augusta facility, the release added, “The proposal states that the detention center is in discussions with a private operator to run the facility. The facility recently closed in 2024, and people held at the facility have endured sexual assault. Former officers at the correctional center have also plead guilty to smuggling drugs into the facility.”

Although the history the ACLU claims of sexual assault and drug smuggling happened under a different operation, Gregg said that history is relevant to now.

“One of the reasons cited for closing the facility was inability to recruit employees to work at the facility to ensure it would be safe for the individuals incarcerated there,” she said. “It only goes to show those issues could persist given the ability to fully staff a facility in this location. And what we know about immigration detention is they will likely try to expand the capacity at this facility above and beyond what it was when it was operating as a Virginia Department of Corrections facility.”

Gregg raised concerns about the number of deaths in ICE custody in recent years.

The documents revealed two other potential detention centers sought in North Carolina, an unidentified facility run by HomelandsUSA which has supported past construction of the border wall, an unidentified facility run by Baptiste Group near Harrisburg, PA. and another unidentified facility in an undesignated location that would run as a “base camp.”

Gregg said a potential facility the Hanover County Board of Supervisors rejected this week near Ashland was not included in part of the FOIA documents they received, so they know there are other efforts by DHS to obtain facilities in Virginia.