LUMPKIN, GA - Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Stewart County officials have signed a service agreement to house and care for detainees in the privately-built, 1,524-bed Stewart Detention Center near Lumpkin. Occupancy should begin Oct. 1.

The $45 million prison, built by Corrections Corporation of America of Nashville, Tenn., never has been occupied since it was essentially completed in 2004.

It will employ about 311 people and is expected to be substantially occupied during 2007, said Steve Owen, CCA's director of marketing.

"This is the biggest thing to happen to Stewart County since I've been here," Stewart County Commission chairman John Stonie Patterson said Monday. "Everything's been leaving rather than coming in the 10 years I've been here. The biggest thing this will do is provide jobs for the county and the area."

CCA and Stewart County signed an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, that runs through Dec. 31, 2011, with an indefinite number of renewals.

"We are grateful to be able to assist ICE by providing a viable solution in its efforts to consolidate and create some efficiencies in managing their detainee populations," said John Ferguson, CCA president and CEO.

Under the agreement, ICE will pay the county $54.25 per day per inmate housed there, with that money to be turned over to CCA, the owner/operator of the prison. Patterson said he hopes ICE can work out a means of directly paying CCA.

Owen said the prison has a courtroom facility where ICE will hold hearings to determine whether detainees will be deported. He said ICE will decide whether the detainees housed there will primarily be of one nationality or if the facility will house a wide variety of people. Owen said he also doesn't know whether detainees will include those who have been accused of crimes in the United States.

He said the company will work with the Georgia Department of Labor to begin filling jobs. Vance Laughlin,who most recently has worked for the company in Arizona, has been selected as new warden, Owen said.

He said some modifications to prison facilities will be completed by Oct. 1 to meet ICE requirements.

ICE, created in 2003, is the largest investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security. The agency combines the law enforcement arms of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service and the former U.S. Customs Service, to more effectively enforce the nation's immigration and customs laws and to protect the U.S. from terrorist attacks. ICE targets illegal immigrants, including the people, money and materials that support terrorism.

Its work includes:

• Dismantling gang organizations by targeting members, seizing financial assets and disrupting criminal operation through Operation Community Shield.

• Investigating employers and targeting illegal workers who have gained access to critical infrastructure work sites, such as nuclear and chemical plants, military installations, seaports and airports.

• Investigating the illegal export of U.S. munitions and sensitive technology through Project Shield America Initiative.

• Helping combat criminal organizations that smuggle and traffic in humans across the borders through Human Smuggling and Trafficking Initiative.

• Ensuring that every alien who has been ordered removed departs the U.S. as quickly as possible and working to reduce the number of fugitive aliens in the U.S.

• Providing law enforcement and security to more than 8,800 federal buildings that receive nearly a million visitors and tenants daily.

CCA is the nation's largest owner and operator of privatized correctional and detention facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the U.S. The company operates 64 facilities, including 39 company-owned facilities, with total design capacity of about 72,500 beds in 19 states and the District of Columbia. It operates two other prisons in Georgia.