Overview

Northern Regional Jail in Moundsville (Marshall County) is one of three West Virginia regional jails identified in October 2025 as holding some of the highest ICE detainee counts in the country while running over capacity. It served as an overflow detention site for the January 2026 “Operation County Roads” sweep, taking detainees who could not fit at South Central in Charleston.

Key Details

• Rated capacity: 289
• Actual population: 388 (Oct 2025) — roughly 34% over capacity
• Role: Held many of the Operation County Roads detainees not housed at South Central (Jan 2026)
• Contract: WV DCR bed-rental to ICE at $90/detainee/day
• Status: Part of the WV system that suspended new ICE intake in late March 2026

Why It Matters

Northern Regional Jail shows how the WV bed-rental model pushed ICE detention into the Northern Panhandle, far from the legal and advocacy resources concentrated in Charleston. As an overflow site running well over rated capacity, it was part of the overcrowding picture that drove the federal court findings.

Sources

• WV Watch: Three WV jails holding country’s ICE detainees are overcapacity (Oct 9, 2025)
• WV Watch: WV jails renting beds to ICE, making state at least $330K (Oct 2, 2025)
• WV Watch: WV pauses putting immigrant detainees in jails (March 26, 2026)