Read more about CCCC here, and see news links here.
March 2026: The Cibola County Commission votes to end contract with ICE governing CCCC.
February 2026: The Immigrant Safety Act (HB9) becomes law in the state of New Mexico, outlawing county contracts to operate ICE prisons as of May 20, 2026.
August 2025: The Guardian releases a three-part series highlighting that “since 2018, at least 15 people detained at the Cibola facility have died, according to numerous documents including local police reports, 911 call records, New Mexico medical investigator reports, wrongful death lawsuits and a video from inside the facility. The deaths include at least 10 suicides, two overdoses, two deaths from prior health problems and one “undetermined” death, as stated in the hundreds of pages of documents gathered” by the publication.
December 2024: ACLU FOIA Litigation shows that ICE is actively considering expansion of CCCC and other immigration prisons nationwide, despite CCCC’s track record of “numerous deaths in recent years, with incidents of neglect, abuse, and lack of medical care,” per the ACLU.
December 2024: Citing accounts from detained individuals, New Mexico Immigrant Law Center files federal oversight complaint regarding widespread medical neglect at CCCC.
November 2024: US Federal agents arrest nine individuals in connection with allegations of widespread introduction of drugs and contraband into CCCC.
March 2024: Colorado College researchers issue report on abuse at Cibola.
November 2023: On or around November 18, 2023, several masked CoreCivic officials disperse pepper spray gas in response to a demonstration by five individuals protesting inadequate food and water and growing frustration with their delayed deportations despite having removal orders from several months prior. CoreCivic staff reportedly turn off the ventilation units during the attack. Men report fainting, vomiting, bleeding, and burning sensations.
April 2023: Multiple advocacy organizations file Civil Rights and Civil Liberties complaint against Cibola highlighting extreme medical neglect including authorities’ failure to intervene in a mental health crisis culminating in a suicide attempt, unlivable conditions of confinement including a rat infestation, and misconduct by prison and ICE officials.
October 2022: Driven to action following the attempted suicide, a group of asylum seekers launch a multi-week hunger strike in protest of medical neglect, unsafe and unsanitary conditions, inedible food, due process violations, prolonged detention, and racism at the facility.
October 2022: A man attempts suicide by hanging himself from a staircase railing with a sheet around his neck. Several people detained in CCCC managed to get the man down, and one person administered first aid. Authorities took the man to the hospital and placed him in solitary confinement when he returned to CCCC.
August 2022: The New Mexico Immigrant Law Center files a Civil Rights & Civil Liberties complaint to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on behalf of Edgar Garrido Diaz, a Nicaraguan asylum seeker detained at CCCC. The complaint alleges that both CCCC and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Field Office in El Paso, Texas, have neglected to provide proper medical care to Garrido Diaz after he injured his ankle and have ignored numerous cries for help and medical attention. The complaint also alleges physical abuse in the form of water and food withholding and forcing Garrido Diaz to move without his walker, and with tight ankle shackles on, during an attempted deportation.
September 2020: CoreCivic is accused of ignoring COVID-19 outbreak.
January 2020: ICE closes transgender detention unit at Cibola and transfers all transgender persons detained there. ICE officials claimed that they were working with the Cibola facility’s owner, CoreCivic, to improve conditions at the detention center, but the transgender unit has not been reopened at Cibola.
November 19, 2018: Attorneys and next-of-kin of Roxsana Hernandez file wrongful death claim in New Mexico against multiple responsible parties.
May 25, 2018: Roxsana Hernandez dies following medical neglect and abuse while detained at CCCC.
October 2016: Cibola County enters into an Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA) with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to detain individuals in ICE custody by repurposing a federal prison, the 1,129-bed Cibola County Correctional Center, owned and operated by CoreCivic, into an ICE detention center.
2012: CCCC’s nurse practitioner, June Kershner, reveals in a deposition that the prison has no physician on staff.
May 2008: Jose Jaramillo collapses inside his cell at CCCC. His family later sues Corrections Corporation of America (later renamed to CoreCivic) for medical negligence. Jaramillo died in 2016 after living in a vegetative state since the incident in CCCC.
Learn more about the harmful histories of the other immigration detention centers in New Mexico:
