Appleton ICE Detention Facility Opens in Western Minnesota

The Appleton ICE detention facility in western Minnesota began holding immigration detainees this week, putting up to 1,600 new beds inside the Eighth Circuit, where a federal appeals court has already approved holding many immigrants without bond. The Department of Homeland Security said it “opened the Appleton Detention Facility on November 9,” Fox 9 reported, and the ACLU told MPR News it had credible reports that at least one person was being held there by Nov. 11. For detainees and their lawyers, where a person is held often decides which federal court reviews the detention, and in this circuit that review now starts from a government-friendly rule.

The site is the former Prairie Correctional Facility, a private prison that sat empty from 2010 until this year. CoreCivic announced in August a five-year ICE contract to run it, and the federal government later bought the property. A DHS spokesperson told Fox 9 the facility “gives ICE immediate capacity to detain and remove those who have no legal right to remain.”

Capacity: up to 1,600 detainees, with full operation expected by mid-2027, according to MPR News.
Price: $495.6 million, according to MPR News and Fox 9. That works out to about $309,750 per bed, a calculation from those reported figures.
Operator: CoreCivic, which expects about $75 million a year in revenue from a fixed monthly payment plus a per-detainee daily rate, MPR News reported.
Location: roughly 20 miles from the South Dakota border, per Fox 9, and far from the Twin Cities.

Why an Appleton ICE detention bed is different from a Twin Cities one

Before Appleton, ICE’s St. Paul field office relied mainly on the Whipple Federal Building near Fort Snelling and county jails under federal contracts, MPR News reported in August. A 1,600-bed hub changes the scale. MPR said detainees could come from county jails across Minnesota or be flown in from other ICE facilities.

That second possibility is where the law matters. In March, a divided Eighth Circuit panel ruled 2-1 that an immigrant living in the United States without having been admitted can be treated as “seeking admission,” which lets the government apply mandatory detention, with no bond hearing, to people arrested far from the border, Courthouse News and Fox News reported. The case involved a Mexican national arrested in Minneapolis. Judge Bobby Shepherd wrote for the majority; Judge Ralph Erickson dissented, calling the administration’s reading a “novel interpretation.” Attorney General Pam Bondi called the decision a “massive court victory.”

A habeas petition challenging detention is generally filed in the federal district where the person is held. The practical effect is that if ICE moves people to Appleton from states in circuits that still require bond hearings, they could lose that argument simply by crossing a circuit line. A large facility in a circuit that has endorsed no-bond detention gives ICE a place to concentrate people where the legal odds favor the government. Where bond hearings do happen, judges must now explain how they weigh disputed proffers under the BIA’s new bond-hearing ruling.

Price, access and the fights still ahead

The purchase price has drawn scrutiny. MPR News, citing a KARE 11 investigation, reported that the amount was more than six times what CoreCivic had asked Minnesota a year earlier. CoreCivic told Fox 9 that the lower figure was a preliminary number from 2015 tied to an unsuccessful effort to interest the state corrections department, not a purchase offer, and that the federal price reflects replacement cost less depreciation. The sale is part of a broader run of CoreCivic ICE detention sales that the company wants to complete before a Democratic Congress is seated in January.

Access is the more immediate concern for detainees. MPR News reported that attorneys had not yet been allowed inside, and a local activist questioned what will happen to people released in the small rural town. Remote placement compounds a problem raised in the lawsuit over ICE’s online detainee locator: families cannot help someone they cannot find.

Some residents see jobs for a town whose economy once depended on the prison, and Republican state Sen. Torrey Westrom welcomed the reopening. State Democratic leaders opposed the plan, and the public employees union AFSCME Council 5 called it “morally wrong, dangerous, and more costly for Minnesota communities,” MPR News reported in August. Unlike the San Antonio detention fight, coverage of the opening has reported no lawsuit to stop it.

The next markers are when Appleton appears on ICE’s public detention list, how fast its population grows, which immigration court hears its cases, and whether the new Congress examines the purchase price.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds an LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Diego and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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