ICE protesters turn their attention to private prison company in North Carolina
Protesters who’ve been speaking out against the federal government’s mass deportation campaign found a new target — this time a company with an office in Charlotte.
About 50 activists with groups like the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Poor People’s Campaign met near GEO Group’s eastern region office in Ballantyne Tuesday evening.
Speakers criticized the company’s pitch to turn a shuttered private prison in rural northeastern North Carolina into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail.
“Apparently this GEO Group over here thought they were in the cut and nobody knew what was going on, so we’re putting them on blast today, and I love it,” Kass Ottley, the founder of Seeking Justice Charlotte, told the crowd.
Last year, news outlets reported that GEO Group was in talks with the government and trying to reopen Rivers Correctional Institution, which was shut down in 2021 when the Federal Bureau of Prisons let a contract expire. Later, the ACLU drew attention to GEO Group when it got records, through a lawsuit, showing the company’s interest.
“Its rural setting offers a secure operational environment with minimal community disruption while ensuring proximity to key transportation networks and regional support services,” GEO Group told ICE in a pitch later published by the ACLU.
Protesters spoke near the office, marched, then looped back with chants like, “Abolish ICE!” Some passersby occasionally honked in support.
“Detention centers do not strengthen communities; they isolate them,” the Rev. Aurrita Payne, who is the president of Unity in Community, told the crowd.
Some in Eastern North Carolina are also concerned, the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald reported. On Monday, concerned residents flooded into a Hertford County commission meeting and criticized the idea of the prison becoming an ICE facility. County commissioners told the room they had no power over whether that would happen.
The Charlotte Observer reached out to GEO Group on Tuesday and received no response.
Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
This story was originally published February 18, 2026 at 5:00 AM.