Minnesota’s shuttered private prison could reopen as ICE detention facility

Minnesota’s only privately owned prison, vacant for 15 years, may get a new life as a detention facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The shuttered Prairie Correctional Facility in the western Minnesota town of Appleton is on an internal ICE list of potential sites to help vastly expand immigrant detention space by the end of the year, according to a Washington Post report.

ICE did not respond to inquiries from the Minnesota Star Tribune. The agency told the Post that the document listing possible detention sites was outdated and had not been approved. Several dozen other locations in multiple states are on the list.

CoreCivic, which owns the Prairie Correctional Facility, contracts with ICE — its largest government partner — for facilities nationwide. Its most recent agreement, signed Aug. 14, called for reopening and operating a 600-bed detention facility in Mason, Tenn.

Ryan Gustin, CoreCivic’s senior director of public affairs, said no contract has been signed for the Appleton facility. In an email, he said the company is “exploring opportunities with our government partners for which this site could be a viable solution.”

Appleton City Administrator John Olinger confirmed he has heard the site is on ICE’s internal list but has not seen the document. He said the city has been in contact with CoreCivic over the past six months amid rumors that the prison might reopen.

“They have done some maintenance,” he said. “They’re repairing the roof and, from my understanding, upgrading the electrical systems. I think they are preparing themselves for a potential contract, but at this point, their official statement is they do not have a contract.”

Staff have remained on-site since the facility closed in February 2010 to sustain readiness, Gustin said in an email. Even while idle, the facility has required ongoing maintenance, including flushing its more than 800 toilets to prevent the pipes from freezing.

Preparing an empty prison to house people again typically takes four to six months, according to the company.

ICE detentions hitting an “all-time high” fueled much of CoreCivic’s growth in the second quarter of 2025, CEO Damon Hininger said in financial reports released Aug. 6. The company’s revenue rose 9.8% year-over-year and it brought in $176.9 million in revenue from ICE in the second quarter of 2025, up 17.2% from last year.

“We expect the substantial increase in government funding approved during July to result in further increases in the utilization of our existing capacity,” Hininger said in a statement.

ICE’s expansion is being financed through the $45 billion detention budget Congress approved last month.

CoreCivic would receive at least 12 contracts worth more than $500 million a year under the ICE plan, the Post reported.

Though Minnesota has three ICE detention facilities connected to county jails in Freeborn, Kandiyohi and Sherburne counties, there are no ICE-run detention facilities.

Reopening the prison could create jobs in Appleton. The facility opened in the early 1990s and was bought a few years later and expanded threefold by CoreCivic, then Corrections Corporation of America, increasing capacity from the original 500 beds.

Olinger said the closure “devastated this town” with residents still feeling the impact. Reopening would bring much-needed business to the city, he added, although there would be downsides, including added pressure on the housing market.