Overview

The Karnes County Immigration Processing Center (formerly Karnes County Residential Center / Karnes County Civil Detention Facility) is a GEO Group-owned, 1,328-bed facility in Karnes City, TX, operating under an intergovernmental service agreement (IGSA) between Karnes County and ICE that runs through August 2029. In March 2025, ICE and GEO modified the IGSA to convert the facility from adult-male-only back to mixed/family populations, reviving the family detention model first used at this site in 2014. GEO’s own investor materials put the contract at roughly $79 million in annualized revenue in the first full year under the modified agreement. Average nightly population from October 2025–March 2026 was approximately 1,199. This is the fourth-largest single revenue line in the national ICE detention buildout tracked by this project’s ice-contract signal for Karnes County (raw signal count: 31).

Key Details

• March 7, 2025: GEO Group announces IGSA contract modification with ICE to convert Karnes from adult-male detention to family/mixed-population detention — GEO press release cites ~$79M annualized revenue.
• Operator: The GEO Group (company-owned facility, not government-owned).
• Contract term: IGSA effective through August 2029.
• July 19, 2025: Tien Xuan Phan, a 55-year-old Vietnamese national, died at Methodist Hospital Northeast (Live Oak, TX) after being airlifted from Otto Kaiser Memorial Hospital following seizures and unresponsiveness in ICE custody at Karnes. He had been arrested by ICE ERO on June 2, 2025, under a 2012 removal order. Cause of death remains under federal investigation (ICE OPR).
• June 20, 2025: Immigration lawyers (National Center for Youth Law, Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, RAICES, Children’s Rights) filed litigation to enforce the Flores Settlement Agreement against the Trump administration’s family-detention revival, citing site visits and detainee interviews at both Karnes and the sister facility in Dilley, TX.
• Conditions documented in Flores litigation (Texas Tribune, June 21 2025): detainees reported inadequate clean water — a mother described having to use tap water for a 9-month-old’s formula, causing three days of diarrhea; a 16-year-old described adults pushing children out of the way to reach limited water rations. Of 90 families interviewed by RAICES since March 2025, 40 reported medical-neglect concerns.
• February 2026 (TPR/statewide wire, “Six deaths in six weeks”): Texas ICE facilities recorded six in-custody deaths in a six-week window (Dec 2025–Jan 2026), concentrated mainly at Camp East Montana (3 deaths) with statewide scrutiny extending to Karnes/Dilley-area facilities; one death (Geraldo Lunas Campos) was ruled a homicide by medical examiner (asphyxiation during restraint). This is context for the county’s detention footprint, not a Karnes-specific death, but reflects the operating environment.
• January 2026 (DHS data cited in reporting): more than 900 children nationally held in family detention beyond 20 days, ~270 beyond 40 days — Karnes and Dilley are the two facilities driving this metric.
• 287(g) WSO: Karnes County Sheriff’s Office holds a Warrant Service Officer agreement with ICE (signed October 17, 2025) — see kb/287g/287-g-wso-karnes-county-sheriff-s-office-tx.md. This runs alongside — but is organizationally separate from — the GEO/ICE facility contract.

Why It Matters

Karnes is a mature, high-capacity, high-revenue node (not a new buildout site) — the March 2025 contract modification shows the administration reactivating existing family-detention infrastructure ahead of building new warehouse capacity elsewhere, and the Flores litigation and in-custody death establish it as a documented harm site, distinguishing it from counties still at the “proposed” or “contested” stage.

Sources

• The GEO Group Announces Contract Modification for Company-Owned, 1,328-Bed Karnes ICE Processing Center (Mar 7, 2025)
• GEO Group investor release, same contract modification
• Vietnamese National Dies in ICE Custody — ICE press release
• Investigation underway after Vietnamese national in ICE custody died in hospital — NBC News
• New insight into Texas family detention reveals adults fighting kids for clean water — Texas Tribune (Jun 21, 2025)
• The Source: Dilley and Karnes Immigrant Detention Facilities Sued — TPR
• Six deaths in six weeks: What to know about ICE detentions in Texas — TPR (Feb 20, 2026)
• Report: Alarming conditions at two Texas detention centers where immigrant families are being held — Texas Standard
• Karnes County Immigration Processing Center — ICE facility page