Prison Site Opponents Unfazed by ICE Plan

• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• 27 Sep 2025
• PENNY WEAVER

CHARLESTON — The new possibility of an immigration detention center on Franklin County pasture land hasn’t changed much for opponents of a 3,000bed prison proposed for the same site.

“This is a property that sustained a cattle farm at most, and it doesn’t even do that very well,” said Adam Watson, a founding member of the local nonprofit Gravel & Grit, which opposes the prison plan. “So we don’t think it has the infrastructure for a 3,000-bed prison, a 1,000-bed prison detention center, a tent city or whatever else they want to put on it to try and save face and protect this investment.

“If there’s infrastructure for anything, maybe it’s a couple tents,” Watson said.

News spread widely Thursday that a trio of agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement toured the 815-acre site at 6310 Arkansas 215 South, about 7 miles north of Charleston near Vesta, with Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders senior adviser Joe Profiri.

Chief Deputy Jon Little of the Franklin County sheriff’s office was patrolling in the area Monday when he saw two vehicles at the gates of the state-owned property and stopped to see who it was, according to Sheriff Johnny Crocker.

The ICE agents, based out of New Orleans, told Little the agency is considering the land for use as an immigration detention center and said they could have an emergency temporary facility raised quickly, Crocker said.

That news doesn’t really faze Branch resident Watson and other vocal opponents of the state’s goal to put what would be the largest correctional facility in Arkansas at Mill Creek Mountain in rural Charleston.

“It doesn’t change the infrastructure at the site; it doesn’t change the access suitability,” Watson said. “It doesn’t change the workforce feasibility, and it most certainly doesn’t change the community acceptance.”

‘VERY VOCAL’

Objections to the governor’s plan to build a large prison in the River Valley — with a goal of easing chronic overcrowding in the state prison system that has long spilled over into county jails — have come from many corners since the land purchase was finalized Oct. 31.

The Chickamauga Nation is another group of vocal opponents to this kind of use for the land. They first raised concerns in March, deeming the land a Chickamauga archaeological site.

Tribe leaders say it is likely the property hosts some of their ancestors’ graves, judging by the many confirmed Chickamauga grave sites in the Mill Creek Mountain area.

They already have sought a meeting with state leaders and received no response.

“We are going to be very vocal if they do not involve us,” Western Region Medal Chief Justin Flanagan, gorget chief for the tribe, said Thursday. “There’s no reason for them to ignore us.”

In June, the Chickamauga reiterated its historic connections and claims to the area via a letter to federal lawmakers.

The document states the federal government has refused to add the Chickamauga Nation to its list of recognized tribes, “violating established federal law and Supreme Court rulings,” according to the letter.

The letter concludes: “The Chickamauga Nation, therefore, shall immediately resume its jurisdiction over the lands where its reservations existed in all treaties we signed, including the states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, or both, in accordance with McGirt.”

McGirt v. Oklahoma is a landmark 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled that domain reserved by Congress for the Muskogee Nation in the 19th century had never been disestablished.

The rationale of that ruling has been applied to other indigenous nations, meaning the land established for them also has not been disestablished, according to the courts, although McGirt related to the Major Crimes Act.

‘PROTECT THE HOMELAND’

The ICE New Orleans Field Office oversees the agency’s operations in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.

ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations aims “to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of those aliens who undermine the safety of our nation’s communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws,” according to the ICE website that is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“ERO oversees civil immigration detention in facilities nationwide that house aliens to secure their presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the U.S.,” the agency states.

The detainees, according to ICE, “are subject to mandatory detention” or “are a public safety or flight risk during the custody determination process,” as decided by the agency.

The number of people arrested and detained by ICE has significantly increased since the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Donald Trump for his second term.

Writing in June on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump promised to focus on the “very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”

WHO ARE DETAINEES?

Crocker said this week he is unhappy criminal issues from the state and federal levels may end up concentrated in Franklin County.

Referencing the potential of a detainment center occupying the state land at Mill Creek Mountain, he said local residents certainly do not want to have reported members of MS-13, an international criminal gang, detained next door.

ICE efforts such as “Operation Raging Bull” and “Operation Matador” have resulted in the arrests and deportations of hundreds of MS-13 members and associates, according to the agency.

More than half of those arrested and detained by ICE in fiscal 2025 are unauthorized immigrants who do not have a criminal record, the department’s numbers show.

The U.S. government’s current fiscal year runs from Oct. 1, 2024, to Tuesday.

ICE agents have arrested approximately 26,606 illegal immigrants during this fiscal year and logged another 66,886 detentions, the agency’s website stated as of Friday.

Of those, 52% have pending criminal charges in the U.S., 35% have criminal convictions, and 13% have no convictions or criminal charges, but ICE states they have broken immigration laws, the website shows.

According to the Cato Institute — a Washington think tank that conducts public policy research — most of those arrested or detained by ICE who do have criminal convictions faced prosecution for nonviolent crimes.

“The government is primarily detaining individuals with no criminal convictions of any kind,” the institute states in a June 20 article.

Charges and penalties under U.S. law for being in the country illegally vary. A person charged with “illegal entry” faces a misdemeanor civil penalty, for example, while someone charged with “illegal reentry” is accused of a felony under Title 8 of the U.S. Code.

‘SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT’S WORK’

Profiri, a former state Department of Corrections secretary hired by Sanders as an adviser hours after the Board of Corrections fired him in January 2024, wasn’t happy to see a local deputy talking to the agents when he arrived Monday at the Franklin County proposed prison site, according to Crocker.

Profiri was criticized by lawmakers and area residents for failing to appear at a Sept. 9 legislative committee meeting in Little Rock for review of a formal citizens’ complaint regarding the prison plan. He has not commented on that matter.

Sam Dubke, communications director for the governor’s office, said Sanders wants to “support the president’s work to secure the border and get violent, criminal illegal aliens off our streets.”

The governor’s office had no further comment.

Messages via both email and voicemail to ICE at the federal level and at the New Orleans field office went unanswered by Friday afternoon.

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., had not returned email or voicemail messages requesting comment Thursday by press time Friday.

An email and voicemail left for state Rep. Jon Eubanks, R-Paris, whose District 46 includes parts of Logan, Franklin, Scott and Sebastian counties, had not been answered by Friday afternoon.

‘MISSING REPRESENTATION’

Watson reflected on the ongoing frustration of area residents in having their voices heard as it relates to the state’s plans for the Franklin County property.

“We’re sadly missing representation,” Watson said.

“There’s very little factual information that’s known here, other than that the site is being looked at,” he said.

Lawmakers including Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, have been vocal in speaking for constituents and opposing the new prison plan. The late Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, also spoke up for Franklin County, residents have noted.

Watson called the potential of ICE putting money into a detention center on the rural Charleston state property “federal welfare.”

“Number one, we’re disappointed that the state put itself into a problem that it can’t solve on its own and has to turn to federal welfare to get itself out of this situation, and number two … money doesn’t solve the water problem,” said Watson, referring to the struggle to find a water source that could accommodate a 3,000-bed prison and about 800 personnel.

“It’s still going to cost an astronomical amount of money to build … whatever it is at that site,” he said.

Article Name: Prison site opponents unfazed by ICE plan
Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Author: PENNY WEAVER
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