A proposed contract and new jobs posted recently for a Minnesota prison are fueling long-running speculation that the federal government wants to reopen it as an immigration detention facility.
The developments at the Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota, come on the heels of $1 million in renovations to the facility located three hours west of the Twin Cities. The former private prison has been closed since 2010, but rumors arose last year that the federal government was eyeing it as a detention facility.
The 147-page proposed contract was posted on a public database run by the federal government that tracks government contracts and grants. The document says the prison meets ICE’s requirements, and provides a five-year breakdown of how the facility could operate as an immigration detention center. The prison is owned by CoreCivic, one of ICE’s largest contractors.
The contract features the Department of Homeland Security’s logo and name, and lists an ICE official as the primary contact.
DHS sent Sahan Journal an email statement Friday that did not address whether the agency is looking at the Appleton prison. However, the statement said ICE has funding to expand detention facilities because of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill package passed in 2025.
“We have no new detention centers to announce at this time,” read the DHS statement.
CoreCivic, which is based in Brentwood, Tennessee, also posted job openings for a chief of security, chief of unit management and an assistant warden. The postings did not include a deadline for applications, a start date or salary information. Sahan Journal reviewed the postings Friday morning on the CoreCivic website; the postings were removed by the afternoon after Sahan Journal exchanged emails with a CoreCivic spokesperson about the posts.
CoreCivic’s senior director of public affairs Ryan Gustin declined an interview request, but shared an email statement with Sahan Journal that did not explicitly say whether the prison will reopen as an immigration detention facility.
According to Gustin’s statement: The company continues to “market” and “explore opportunities with our government partners for which this site could be a viable solution.” Job postings for the facility are “designed to gauge interest” and build a job applicant pool if it reopens “at some point.”
$1 million in renovations
Appleton Mayor Justin Koepp and City Administrator John Olinger declined to comment Friday, saying they couldn’t speak on the matter because they have not received information from CoreCivic. Koepp said he learned about the developments Friday via email. Olinger said he learned about them Friday when reporters called him.
Swift County Administrator Tesa Tomascett also declined to comment, saying she has no involvement and doesn’t know anything. Swift County Commissioner Gary Hendrickx, who represents Appleton, did not respond to requests for comment.
If the facility reopens, Olinger told Sahan Journal last year, it would likely more than double the city’s current population of 1,400.
City officials have previously said that while they are aware of residents’ concerns, CoreCivic has the final say about whether the prison reopens since it’s privately owned.
CoreCivic and local officials have talked on and off over the past several years about the facility’s possible reopening. Those rumors were heightened when the Washington Post published an article last year uncovering ICE documents revealing the federal agency’s plans to expand detention centers. The documents mentioned transforming the Appleton facility into an immigration detention center.
Brian Wojtalewicz, a longtime Appleton resident, does not support the facility reopening as a detention center. He lives about two miles away, and said CoreCivic has been “renovating it a lot and pouring money” into it the last several months.
Wojtalewicz told Sahan Journal that the work is ongoing, and that he’s seen helicopters, work trucks and several people around the facility, leading him to think that CoreCivic is “really intent on reopening it.”
CoreCivic filed a building permit last September for approximately $1 million in renovations, according to Olinger. The renovations included roof insulation, installing smoke detectors and updating vents. City emails obtained by Sahan Journal in a public records request appeared to reveal CoreCivic’s interest in a federal contract.
CoreCivic’s Minneapolis-based attorney, Matthew Duffy, emailed Olinger on Feb. 24, seeking confirmation that the facility met zoning requirements. Duffy also notified the city in that same email that CoreCivic had completed contract negotiations and planned to “re-introduce detainees” to the prison.
Emails show that Olinger quickly informed other city and county officials, prompting Sheriff John Holtz to call “the warden at CoreCivic.” Holtz sent an email to city and county officials on Feb. 25 telling them that the warden said Duffy’s email was sent by mistake.
“This is a volatile situation and we should exercise as much discretion as possible,” Holtz wrote in his email.
Olinger sent an email on Feb. 26 to County Commissioner Hendrickx and County Administrator Tesa Tomaschett, informing them that recruiters had been calling local emergency dispatchers, jail staff, and deputies about work at the prison.
“Just more confirmation the letter was probably true, just premature,” Olinger wrote, referring to Duffy’s email.
Duffy did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Proposed federal contract
The proposed contract seeks to fulfill the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and “border decompression” goals, according to the contract description on the government’s website. The contract provides a breakdown of security requirements, facility design and maintenance over a five-year period for the Prairie Correctional Facility.
According to the contract: The facility can house up to 1,600 detainees, and provide guards, meals, medical care and transportation. The facility could house detainees 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with management personnel available from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in accordance with the St. Paul ICE Field Office.
“Core Civic is the sole owner and operator of the Prairie detention facility that meets ICE requirements in the timeframe,” the contract said.
CoreCivic representatives met with local elected officials a few times in 2017 to discuss reopening the prison as a federal immigration detention facility, but it never went further than that, Hendrickx told Sahan Journal last year. During Trump’s first term, CoreCivic submitted a proposal to ICE in 2019 to house detainees at the Prairie Correctional Facility, but it was never implemented.
CURE, a Minnesota advocacy group dedicated to rural communities, opposes reopening the prison as an immigration detention facility. The group hosted a vigil and press conference last September urging city officials to refuse reopening the facility, and urged them to collaborate with residents to change the facility’s focus.
“We do not want the facility to open as an ICE detention facility at all,” said Andy Pearson, senior organizer for CURE. “We believe that what we see ICE building — this system of privatized mass detention under the control of the administration — are antithetical to the principles of democracy that CURE believes in.”
