ST. PAUL, Minn. — The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota strongly condemns the reopening of former Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton as a 1,600-bed immigration detention center and the sale of the property to the federal government.
CoreCivic, the operator and previous owner of the facility, announced on Tuesday, Aug. 4, that the facility will begin housing people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement later this year. The company subsequently announced that it would sell the Appleton prison to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for nearly $500 million while continuing to operate it under a five-year ICE contract. The facility has been closed since 2010.
Recent investigations into ICE detention facilities have documented cruel and degrading conditions, inadequate medical and mental health care, the use of excessive force, and severe obstacles to legal representation for detained individuals. Deaths in ICE custody have also risen sharply as the federal government rapidly expands its detention system.
The planned re-opening of the Appleton facility raises urgent questions about whether the aging prison can safely detain anyone. When the Minnesota Department of Corrections previously considered acquiring Prairie Correctional Facility for state use, it commissioned a detailed facility assessment that identified substantial work necessary to renovate the prison and bring it into compliance with state operational and correctional standards.
That process contemplated nearly $110,000,000 in improvements and repairs to the facility’s physical plant, security systems, and other infrastructure — not a rushed reopening after only approximately $1 million in reported renovations.
The federal government has demonstrated little interest in independently policing its detention system. ICE has continued expanding despite documented abuse and rising deaths, and it recently changed its public reporting practices to no longer include people who died shortly after being released from custody.
The sale of the facility to DHS compounds those concerns. By transferring ownership to the federal government while retaining CoreCivic as the operator, the parties appear to be structuring the arrangement to place the prison beyond meaningful state oversight. Minnesota has rejected private prisons and established standards intended to protect people held within the state. The federal government should not be permitted to spend nearly half a billion taxpayer dollars to circumvent those safeguards.
The sale also threatens to shift significant costs onto Appleton residents. CoreCivic is expected to pay approximately $768,000 in property taxes on the facility this year, with that revenue divided among the city, Swift County, and the Lac qui Parle Valley School District. Once the property becomes federally owned, it will generally be exempt from local property taxation, even as Appleton and surrounding communities may be expected to provide roads, utilities, emergency response, and other public services supporting the facility.
The ACLU-MN calls on federal, state and local officials to disclose the full purchase agreement, operating contract, renovation plans, inspection reports, detention standards, and anticipated effects on local services and tax revenue. No one should be confined at the Appleton facility until those records are public and independent authorities have verified that the facility complies with all applicable health, safety, and constitutional requirements.
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