CoreCivic announced it has been awarded a contract to resume operations at the company- owned 2,160-bed Diamondback Correctional Facility at Watonga, which has been idle for the last 15 years.
The private prison will house federal detainees under an intergovernmental services agreement between the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The contract, which started on Sept. 30, is for a five-year term. The agreement provides for a fixed monthly payment plus an incremental per diem payment based on detainee populations. Total annual revenue once the facility is fully activated is expected to be approximately $100 million, the company reported.
“We expect to begin receiving detainees in the first quarter of 2026, with the full ramp estimated to be complete in the second quarter of 2026,” said Damon T. Hininger, CoreCivic's chief executive officer.
'We are pleased to expand our relationship with the DOC while providing ICE with critical infrastructure capacity at our Diamondback Correctional Facility,” Hininger said.
“While this facility has been idle since 2010, we have made investments to help ensure a seamless reactivation in the event of a new contract. Further, we expect to invest an additional $13 million over the next several quarters for renovations requested by ICE.”
Watonga’s population in 2020 was 2,690, according to the decennial U.S. census.
Oklahoma Watch reported in August that CoreCivic was advertising detention officer positions at its vacant prisons in Watonga and Sayre.
The company is offering $27 per hour to detention officer recruits, which is $5.50 per hour more than what Oklahoma pays its entry-level correctional officers, Oklahoma Watch reported. KFOR-TV, though, reported that CoreCivic is offering salaries of $29 per hour, $7 more than the Corrections Department pays.
No law enforcement or corrections experience is necessary to apply, according to the postings. Applicants must be 21 or older, have a clean driving record and hold a high school diploma or GED.
The North Fork Correctional Center at Sayre, closed since 2023, can house approximately 2,400 detainees.
CoreCivic announced in February that it confines approximately 1,100 ICE detainees in its 1,600-bed Cimarron Correctional Facility at Cushing under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service.
In a second quarter earnings call in August, Hininger said that because of the number of immigrant detainees snared in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, the nation is witnessing the highest detention populations ever recorded by ICE, which has been CoreCivic's largest customer.
The number of ICE detainees in CoreCivic facilities increased by 28% to more than 13,000 from the end of 2024 through the end of the second quarter, Hininger said. The company reported total revenue of $538.2 million in Q2 2025, an increase of nearly 10% from the previous year.
The Tennessee-based company’s stock has risen 52% since President Trump’s reelection last November.
“Our business is perfectly aligned with the demands of this moment,” he said. “We are in an unprecedented environment with rapid increases in federal detention populations nationwide and a continuing need for solutions we provide.”
Patrick D. Swindle, CoreCivic's president and chief operating officer, said that, “Including the new contract awards at three of our other facilities previously announced during the third quarter of 2025, we have signed new contracts aggregating 6,353 beds across our four facilities, all of which were idle at the beginning of the year, with approximately $325 million of annual revenue once the facilities are fully activated. Reactivating the Diamondback facility is another step toward realizing the growth potential of the company.'
CoreCivic claims to be “the nation’s largest owner of partnership correctional, detention and residential reentry facilities, and one of the largest operators of such facilities in the United States.”