The Frontier · Alva, OK
We’re asking tough questions about Oklahoma’s role in immigration detention. Your support makes it possible.
November 13, 2026 From conditions inside Oklahoma’s largest immigration detention center to the changing federal policies affecting immigrants across the state, The Frontier is committed to following the story. Your year-end donation will help sustain that work — and will be matched through NewsMatch. Tweet Share Share Author Ari Fife [email protected] Reading Time 2 min Posted In fundraising Frontier Staff Writer Ari Fife works at The Frontier’s Oklahoma City office. BRIANNA BAILEY/The Frontier In September, I drove almost three hours to a state prison in Alva near the Kansas border to try to speak with one person — Oklahoma Department of Corrections director Justin Farris. The state Board of Corrections was holding a meeting there, and I knew it could be my only chance to ask Farris in person about the contract the Department of Corrections had signed with the federal government to house immigration detainees at the privately run Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga.