A Minnesota prison was for sale for $75 million. ICE paid almost $500 million for it

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ICE paid nearly $500 million to acquire a private prison in Minnesota that was previously offered to the state for just $75 million, according to a report.

The immigration agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, paid $495.6 million in August for the vacant Prairie Correctional Facility in the small town of Appleton in response to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, assuming more holding space for detainees would be needed.

However, an investigation by Kare 11, citing recently unsealed emails, found that the seller, Tennessee-based private prison operator CoreCivic, had previously offered to sell the exact same facility to the state of Minnesota for just $75 million in May 2025.

That price even included modernizing the facility, which opened 34 years ago and closed for 16 years, but was capable of housing 1,600 inmates at its peak.

The state ultimately decided against the deal at the time, believing it might be difficult to staff the Prairie Correctional Center given its remote location — a nearly three-hour drive from the Minneapolis-St. Paul — and expensive to build new homes to accommodate the roughly 500 employees needed to operate it, concerns that apparently do not appear to be shared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith called on Congress to investigate after the report was released.

“I am calling on the House and Senate Homeland Security committees, as well as the House Oversight Committee, to immediately begin investigating why Trump paid nearly half a billion to a Trump donor for a prison worth just $75 million,” Ellison said. “Trump fleecing taxpayers out of nearly half a billion dollars is outrageous, especially at a time when Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran are already driving up prices for Minnesotans.”

Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell told Kare 11 investigative reporter AJ Lagoe that he was “stunned” that the federal government paid six times more for the prison than its previous assessment, an additional cost of $420.6 million to the taxpayer in a state where Republicans have been in uproar over alleged benefits fraud.

“It’s inexplicable,” Schnell said. “Obviously I was stunned. It’s beyond belief… I don’t know how they could justify that amount.”

The outlet revealed that the Appleton prison was one of four prisons that CoreCivic sold to the government this summer for a total of $2.2 billion, with the others located in Kansas and California.

The company is also expected to earn about $75 million more annually from operating the Prairie, Minn., correctional facility over the next five years.

Kare 11 further uncovered federal documents revealing that CoreCivic donated $500,000 to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee.

A company spokesperson said independent appraisers used a “cost-based methodology” to value the facility, but added: “The federal government ultimately determined the sale price following its appraisal process. »

The Independent has contacted DHS and ICE for comment.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office released a scathing report in September warning of the “urgent need” to stop ICE from wasting taxpayer dollars, citing the agency’s decision to spend $1.07 billion on 11 warehouses earlier in the year with plans to convert them into detention centers before ultimately changing course and losing $20 million in the process.

“ICE’s purchase of existing detention centers risks waste,” he warned. “ICE has not evaluated the long-term affordability of owning these facilities.”