The Trump administration has spent more than $2.2 billion buying four immigration detention facilities from CoreCivic.
DHS bought the 1,600-bed Prairie Correctional Facility in Minnesota and the 1,033-bed Midwest Regional Reception Center in Kansas for $734 million, CoreCivic announced Wednesday. The purchases expand federal ownership of ICE detention infrastructure as the administration ramps up deportations.
The deal follows DHS’s $1.5 billion acquisition last month of the California City Detention Facility and the Otay Mesa Detention Center. The federal government now owns the facilities. CoreCivic, however, expects to keep operating all four under its existing contracts with ICE.
The Prairie Correctional Facility contract runs through August 2031. The Midwest Regional Reception Center contract expires in September 2027. ICE can renegotiate or terminate both agreements under existing contract terms.
The purchases come after Congress approved roughly $170 billion in new immigration enforcement funding through President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The administration has used the money to expand detention capacity ahead of its mass deportation campaign.
The California purchases also shifted two major detention centers into federal ownership. DHS said the move protects ICE’s detention network in a state where officials have targeted private detention facilities.
A DHS spokesman said California’s “sanctuary politicians” have tried to make private detention facilities financially unworkable. Federal ownership, the spokesman said, ensures ICE “retains the detention capacity needed to arrest, detain, and remove illegal aliens.”
CoreCivic said it expects about $522.5 million in net proceeds from the latest sale after taxes and transaction costs. The company said it will use the money to reduce debt, repurchase shares, and for other corporate purposes.