It’s official: The dormant prison in rural Appleton will become an ICE detention center
www.minnpost.com
A long-shuttered prison in the Swift County town will hold up to 1,600 immigrant detainees, beginning this fall.

A long-rumored Trump administration plan to repurpose a private prison in rural western Minnesota for use as a detention center for undocumented immigrants has come to fruition.

Prison industry giant CoreCivic announced Tuesday that it has finalized a five-year federal contract to reopen a long-shuttered prison in Appleton that will now hold immigrant detainees.

The company estimated its new contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would bring in $75 million a year.

CoreCivic’s contract with ICE comes as little surprise. The company, which owns the facility in Appleton, has for many months been refurbishing the prison, called the Prairie Correctional Facility.

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Now it will hold up to 1,600 immigrant detainees.

CoreCivic said it expects to begin receiving detainees at the end of this year “with the full ramp estimated to be complete in the second quarter of 2027.”

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The chair of the state’s Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, called the plans an affront to all Minnesotans.

“The stories and reporting on the treatment of people detained by ICE are appalling, and raise serious concerns about the health and safety of the men, women, and children who are in these facilities,” he stated. “No one should be detained for profit and a corporation’s bottom line, which is why we banned the use of for-profit prisons in 2023 in Minnesota. Every effort will be explored as to how the state can prevent this facility from opening.”

The reopening of the Prairie Correctional Facility is a part of the Trump administration’s quest to find more detention space as it continually presses to increase deportations.

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Last summer, the Washington Post reported the United States had reached capacity with about 50,000 immigrants under detention and that the Trump administration wanted to more than double that number to 107,00.

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CURE, a rural advocacy organization, said Appleton residents have been gathering regularly to oppose the facility.

The public workers union AFSCME, meanwhile, condemned ICE’s decision to contract with a for-profit prison company.

“”No corporation should generate revenue and profit off imprisoning human beings, separating families, and expanding a for-profit detention system that treats human beings and workers as sources of profit for shareholders,” the union stated in a release.