This Prison Rehabilitated Inmates. Until ICE Paid to Fill It With Immigrants.

Over two decades, a minimum-security prison aimed at helping inmates prepare to leave prison was a point of civic pride. Now, state officials have converted it to ICE detention.

By Allison McCann Visuals by Cheney Orr
Reporting from McCook, Neb.
Dec. 7, 2025

The inmates housed at the minimum-security state prison in McCook, Neb., could often be seen around town, working on road paving, weeding cemeteries, taking down Christmas lights and mowing the high school football field before games. They took classes at the local community college, and an art gallery displayed work from 13 prisoners this summer.

For more than two decades, the prison, known as the Work Ethic Camp, was Nebraska’s only state prison geared solely toward rehabilitation. The facility held nonviolent felony offenders who were nearing the end of their sentences and prepared them, with counseling, schooling and job training, to return to the outside world.

That changed this fall, after state officials announced that the Work Ethic Camp would be replaced with a 300-bed, high security Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center to support President Trump’s national crackdown on illegal immigration. ... And so a place that had been devoted to second chances now had a very different mission, and a new name to go with it: “The Cornhusker Clink.”

In McCook, a conservative town of about 7,500 that voted overwhelmingly for President Trump, some residents have objected. Many said they support Mr. Trump’s stance on illegal immigration but also liked what they had before: A prison that didn’t feel like a prison. With its close ties to the community, it was a place that helped Nebraskans get back on their feet.



The former work camp featured classrooms and open areas for exercise. A single fence surrounded only the back buildings where inmates slept.


Tor Olson

The state of Nebraska has so far spent nearly $2 million retrofitting the facility, adding coiled razor-wire atop layers of fencing and sensors to detect escape.



A garden that inmates once tended was paved over to create a patrol road, where a guard now drives in a loop.



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Allison McCann is a reporter and graphics editor at The Times who covers immigration.