Rosen tours Pahrump detention center amid scrutiny of migrant conditions
Rosen toured the Pahrump detention center as inspectors and lawmakers kept pressing ICE on capacity, medical care and detainee complaints. The facility could shape both conditions inside and the county economy.
Jacky Rosen toured the Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump and pressed for details on how many migrants it can hold, how many staff are on site and what medical care detainees receive. The visit put a fresh spotlight on a CoreCivic-run facility that has become central to both immigration-enforcement debates and Nye County’s bottom line.
The Pahrump facility was approved by the Nye County Commission in 2008 and the development agreement allows it to house detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service. CoreCivic’s site has a capacity of 1,072 inmates overall, with a reported ICE detainee capacity of 422, and reporting in August 2025 said ICE was considering a soft-sided structure that could hold 450 more detainees.
ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight inspected the center March 19-21, 2024, then returned for a follow-up inspection Sept. 17-19, 2024. Those follow-up checks are used to see whether earlier deficiencies affecting detainee life, health, safety and well-being were corrected, making the Pahrump center one of the most closely watched detention sites in Southern Nevada.
The scrutiny has not been limited to Rosen’s visit. On July 31, 2025, Rep. Steven Horsford said he was denied entry to the same Pahrump ICE center during an oversight visit, and he said detainees told him they had been denied proper legal representation and timely health care. Those complaints have kept attention on access to lawyers, medical staffing and how much transparency the facility provides to outside lawmakers.
Nye County also has a financial history with federal immigration detention that still resonates locally. The county ended its ICE contract in November 2024 after officials said the arrangement was no longer financially beneficial and after the county lost a medical services provider. ICE had been paying the county roughly $2.2 million to $2.5 million a year beginning in 2020, while county officials said costs were rising for medical care, food, wages and janitorial services.
Before the contract ended, county officials said the ICE population averaged 64 detainees who stayed about 37 days. That smaller census, compared with the center’s broader capacity, left open questions about how aggressively the facility might be used if ICE expands detention space again in Pahrump.
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