ICE paid $495.6M for Minnesota prison once offered to the state for $75M

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid $495.6 million for the vacant Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota, a prison its owner CoreCivic had offered to the state for $75 million in May 2025, KARE 11 reported.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid $495.6 million in August 2026 for the vacant Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota, a prison its owner had offered to the state for $75 million more than a year earlier, according to an investigation by Minneapolis TV station KARE 11.

Citing newly unsealed emails, KARE 11 reported that Tennessee-based private prison operator CoreCivic offered to sell the same facility to Minnesota for $75 million in May 2025, a price that included upgrades. The state turned the deal down, citing the difficulty of staffing the remote prison, nearly a three-hour drive from the Twin Cities.

The facility opened 34 years ago and has been closed for the last 16. At its peak it could hold 1,600 inmates. ICE bought it as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown increased demand for detention space.

A gate at the Prairie Correctional Facility, closed since 2010

Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said he was “stunned” by the price. “It’s unexplainable,” he said. Attorney General Keith Ellison called on the House and Senate homeland security committees and the House Oversight Committee to investigate the purchase.

KARE 11 found that the Appleton prison was one of four facilities CoreCivic sold to the federal government this summer for a combined $2.2 billion, with the others in Kansas and California. The company is expected to earn an estimated $75 million a year operating the Minnesota facility over the next five years. Federal records show CoreCivic donated $500,000 to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee.

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