Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison urged Congress to probe U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) $495.6 million prison purchase after KARE 11 reported CoreCivic had offered the facility to Minnesota for $75 million.
In its account of newly unsealed emails, KARE 11 said CoreCivic proposed the sale in May 2025, with upgrades included in the price. ICE bought the Prairie Correctional Facility in August for $495.6 million, $420.6 million more than the earlier offer.
KARE 11 reported that Minnesota passed on the deal because officials were concerned about staffing the remote site and the expense of housing workers. The facility is in Appleton, roughly a three-hour drive from Minneapolis-St. Paul, the station reported. It had been closed for 16 years, once held up to 1,600 inmates and would need about 500 workers to reopen.
Ellison asked Congress to scrutinize the purchase, naming the House Oversight Committee and the Homeland Security committees in both chambers. He alleged that President Donald Trump had paid a donor nearly half a billion dollars for the prison. KARE 11 reported that federal records show CoreCivic donated $500,000 to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee.
Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell told KARE 11 he was “stunned” by the federal price. CoreCivic said independent appraisers used a cost-based valuation; federal officials set the final sale price after their assessment.
KARE 11 estimated CoreCivic would make about $75 million annually by operating the prison over the next five years. The station also reported that the facility was one of four CoreCivic sold to the government over the summer in deals totaling $2.2 billion; the other sites were in Kansas and California.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned in September that ICE had not assessed whether owning detention facilities would be affordable over time. The report cited ICE’s $1.07 billion purchase of 11 warehouses for possible conversion into detention centers; after the agency changed plans, it lost $20 million.
