Ep 146 - The Business of Locking People Up

There’s a difference between enforcing immigration law and building an industry around locking people up. One is a legitimate function of government. The other raises questions about money, influence, accountability, and what happens when keeping people behind bars becomes a profitable business. And judging by the billions of dollars now flowing into America’s immigration detention system, those are questions we ought to be asking a whole lot more often. 

Billions for detention, millions for contractors, and a growing industry built around locking people up.

The Trump administration has made immigration enforcement one of its defining priorities. Nobody can reasonably dispute that the federal government has the authority to enforce immigration laws, detain people when legally justified, and carry out lawful deportations. But acknowledging that authority doesn't require us to applaud every decision made in its name. Particularly when those decisions involve enormous amounts of taxpayer money, private corporations, and an expanding network of facilities designed to hold human beings.

Consider what's happening in Appleton, Minnesota. There sits the Prairie Correctional Facility, a 1,600-bed prison that had been sitting idle since 2010. In August 2026, the Department of Homeland Security purchased that facility from private prison operator CoreCivic for approximately $495.6 million. The same property had reportedly been offered to the state of Minnesota for $75 million the previous year. That's a difference of more than $420 million. And while those figures alone don't establish wrongdoing, they certainly establish the need for a very thorough explanation.

CoreCivic has defended the transaction, pointing to an independent appraisal that considered replacement costs, depreciation, and necessary renovations. That's relevant information, and it deserves consideration. But so does the extraordinary difference between the two prices. What changed? What alternatives were evaluated? Was buying the property more economical than leasing or using existing capacity? Those aren't partisan questions. They're the questions anyone spending nearly half a billion public dollars should be prepared to answer.

And here's where the arrangement becomes especially interesting. The government didn't simply buy the facility and wave goodbye to CoreCivic. The company also received a five-year contract to operate it. According to CoreCivic's own announcement, that contract includes a fixed monthly payment along with additional payments tied to the number of detainees. Once the facility is fully operational, the company expects approximately $75 million in annual revenue. So the government pays hundreds of millions to purchase the property, and the former owner continues receiving government money to run it. That's quite a business arrangement.

Now, there's nothing inherently illegal about a private company making money from a government contract. We rely on private contractors for all sorts of public services. But detention is different from providing office supplies or maintaining government vehicles. The product being purchased is the confinement of human beings. And when corporate revenue depends partly on how many people occupy detention beds, the financial incentives deserve scrutiny. That doesn't prove contractors are influencing immigration arrests or detention decisions. It does mean the public has a legitimate interest in making absolutely certain those decisions are driven by law and necessity rather than the economics of keeping facilities occupied.

The concerns aren't limited to one prison in Minnesota. In September, the Government Accountability Office reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had purchased eleven warehouses for approximately $1.07 billion as part of its detention expansion efforts. Seven were subsequently slated for sale, with more than $20 million already spent on costs the government couldn't recover. GAO found that ICE had pursued multiple expansion initiatives without the comprehensive planning needed to determine how much detention capacity was necessary or which approaches would provide the best value. Apparently, when it comes to spending enormous sums of public money, planning ahead has become an optional feature.

The Department of Homeland Security's own inspector general has raised similar concerns. A September audit examining earlier detention contracts found inadequate planning, inconsistent monitoring, and missing procurement justifications. These weren't merely disputes over political priorities. They were documented weaknesses in how the government determined its needs, awarded contracts, and verified what taxpayers were getting for their money. And now that the detention system is expanding so dramatically, those longstanding weaknesses become even more consequential.

There's also a human dimension that tends to disappear beneath all the financial figures. Immigration detention is civil detention, not automatically punishment for a criminal conviction. The people held in these facilities have different legal circumstances, different histories, and different claims that must be evaluated under the law. Whatever anyone thinks about immigration policy, confinement carries an obligation to provide humane conditions, appropriate medical care, meaningful legal access, and respect for constitutional protections. Those obligations don't become less important because the detention center happens to be operated by a corporation.

The larger concern is what happens when temporary detention starts developing the characteristics of a permanent growth industry. Buildings are purchased. Contracts are signed. Workers are hired. Investors anticipate revenue. Communities become economically dependent on facilities. And an entire network of financial interests develops around the continued operation of the system. None of that establishes that detention decisions are being made to benefit corporations. But it creates an obvious question about whether the government is building capacity to meet a carefully established need or allowing the availability of capacity to influence what it considers necessary.

And that brings us to something I find particularly difficult to reconcile. Immigration detention is supposed to serve a temporary purpose while someone's legal status or removal proceedings are resolved. So why is the federal government purchasing so many facilities? Why commit enormous amounts of money to permanent infrastructure without first demonstrating that the investment is necessary, proportionate, and economically sound? And what happens to those facilities if detention needs eventually decline? These are questions that ought to be answered before the checks are written, not years afterward when the buildings are sitting empty and the money is gone.

Supporters of expanded detention will argue that effective enforcement requires adequate capacity. Fair enough. A government cannot carry out its responsibilities without the necessary resources. But adequate capacity isn't the same thing as unlimited capacity, and urgency isn't a substitute for competent management. If anything, an administration asking taxpayers to finance such a dramatic expansion should face more scrutiny, not less.

There's a strange contradiction here, too. We're constantly being told that the federal government is bloated, inefficient, and desperately in need of fiscal discipline. Yet when the spending supports a favored political priority, suddenly hundreds of millions of dollars can change hands with remarkably little public debate. Fiscal responsibility shouldn't depend on whether we approve of the people being detained. Government waste doesn't become acceptable simply because it's attached to an immigration enforcement contract.

Ultimately, the issue isn't whether immigration laws should be enforced. It's whether enforcement decisions are being made responsibly, whether private financial interests are receiving appropriate scrutiny, and whether taxpayers are getting anything resembling reasonable value for their money. It's also about remembering that the people inside these facilities are human beings, not inventory, revenue opportunities, or statistics on an earnings report.

A detention system should exist to meet a legitimate public need. A legitimate public need should never have to exist to sustain a detention industry. And the bigger this business becomes, the more important that distinction is going to be.

SOURCES

Government Accountability Office — Immigration Detention: Urgent Planning Needed to Avoid Further Waste of Taxpayer Dollars - https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108663

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General — ICE Did Not Adequately Plan, Procure, and Monitor Detention Space Contracts and Agreements - https://www.oversight.gov/reports/audit/ice-did-not-adequately-plan-procure-and-monitor-detention-space-contracts-and

CoreCivic — Prairie Correctional Facility Contract Announcement, August 4, 2026 - https://ir.corecivic.com/news-releases/news-release-details/corecivic-announces-new-contract-award-prairie-correctional

CoreCivic SEC Filing — Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Prairie Correctional Facility Sale - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1070985/000119312526337295/cxw-20260630.htm

Bring Me The News — ICE Paid $495 Million for Minnesota Prison Previously Offered to the State for $75 Million - https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/ice-paid-private-prison-firm-495m-for-appleton-site-that-had-been-offered-to-state-for-75m

CoreCivic — October 31, 2026 Statement Explaining the Prairie Correctional Facility Appraisal - https://www.corecivic.com/news/recent-real-estate-transactio-appleton-detention-facility

Minnesota Star Tribune — The Economics of Trump's $496 Million Minnesota Prison Purchase - https://www.startribune.com/ramstad-ice-overpays-for-private-prison-but-appleton-remains-in-limbo/601885007