Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid a massive 495.6 million dollars in August to buy the vacant Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota. This purchase, made under the direction of President Donald Trump, comes after the agency looked for more space to hold inmates as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration. New details show that this same property was offered to the state of Minnesota for just 75 million dollars in May 2025, the Independent reports.
The facility has been closed for 16 years, though it once held 1,600 inmates. The previous offer to the state even included upgrades to the building, which opened 34 years ago. Minnesota officials ultimately passed on the deal. They worried about the remote location, which sits a nearly three-hour drive from Minneapolis-St. Paul. They also feared the high costs of building new housing for the roughly 500 employees needed to run the prison.
Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell expressed his disbelief regarding the federal government deal. He told Kare 11 reporter AJ Lagoe that he was “stunned” at the federal government paying six times more for the prison than its prior valuation, an additional cost to the taxpayer of 420.6 million dollars in a state where Republicans have been in uproar about alleged benefit fraud. Schnell noted that “It’s unexplainable,” and added, “Obviously I was stunned. It’s beyond comprehension… I don’t know how they could justify this amount.”
Attorney General Keith Ellison is now calling for a congressional investigation into the matter
Ellison stated, “I’m calling on House and Senate Homeland Security Committees, and the House Oversight Committee, to immediately begin investigating why Trump paid almost half a billion to a Trump donor for a prison worth just 75 million.”
Ellison also claimed that “Trump scamming taxpayers out of almost half a billion dollars is outrageous, especially at a time when Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran are already raising prices for Minnesotans.” Federal records show that CoreCivic, the private operator that sold the prison, donated 500,000 dollars to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee.
A company spokesperson said that independent appraisers used a cost-based methodology to value the site. They noted that the federal government decided on the final price after its own assessment process. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security defended the purchase. They said, “DHS acquired the Prairie Correctional Facility to strengthen America’s ability to enforce its immigration laws and carry out the American people’s mandate for mass deportations.”
The agency also stated, “The 1,600-bed site gives ICE immediate capacity to detain and remove those who have no legal right to remain, protecting American communities and restoring the integrity of our borders without waiting years for new construction.”
According to the department, the 75 million dollar figure was just a preliminary, non-binding offer that did not reflect current construction costs or federal standards. They also noted that Minnesota recently estimated the cost to replace the Stillwater prison at roughly 1.3 billion dollars.
This facility is one of four that CoreCivic sold to the government this summer for a combined 2.2 billion dollars. The company stands to make another 75 million dollars each year by running the Minnesota site over the next five years.
This situation follows a warning from the Government Accountability Office in September about ICE potentially wasting taxpayer money. The office previously cited a decision to spend 1.07 billion dollars on 11 warehouses that were meant to become detention centers, which led to a 20 million dollar loss when the agency changed its plans.
The office warned that “ICE’s purchase of existing detention facilities has the potential to result in waste,” and pointed out that the agency has not assessed the long-term affordability of owning these buildings.
Published: Nov 5, 2026 06:45 pm