Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), whose office is examining DHS\'s purchase of the Appleton, Minn., detention facility. Official U.S. Senate portrait (public domain).
Sen. Maggie Hassan has asked CoreCivic and DHS to preserve records on the federal purchase of the Appleton, Minn., prison, an early move toward a full inquiry once Democrats take the Senate in January.
The Appleton detention facility in western Minnesota is now the subject of a Senate oversight inquiry. Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, has sent letters to CoreCivic and the Department of Homeland Security calling on them to preserve their records on the government’s purchase of the former Prairie Correctional Facility, Reuters reported on Nov. 13. The letters are dated Nov. 11 and were made public Friday. Hassan is seeking to lead the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee when Democrats take control in January, according to Reuters, which would give her the panel with primary jurisdiction over DHS.
Her office framed the issue as one of price. DHS “reportedly purchased the Prairie Correctional Facility from CoreCivic, a major immigration detention contractor, for $495 million,” Hassan’s office said, according to Reuters, adding that the sale came shortly after Minnesota declined to buy the same facility for $75 million. CoreCivic and DHS could not be reached for comment, Reuters reported.
The timing matters because ICE began holding detainees at Appleton this week. DHS said it opened the facility on Nov. 9, Fox 9 reported, and the site can hold up to 1,600 people. A preservation letter does not compel anyone to hand over documents. What it does is put DHS and the company on notice that emails, appraisals and negotiation records may be sought later, before a change in Senate control gives Democrats the gavel, and with it the committee’s hearing and subpoena tools under its rules.
What the government paid, and the dispute over the $75 million figure
MPR News reported in August, citing a CoreCivic investor statement, that DHS bought Appleton for $495.6 million in the same round as a 1,033-bed CoreCivic facility in Kansas. CoreCivic kept the job of running Appleton under a five-year management contract that runs to August 2031, and the company said ICE can end those contracts for non-appropriation of funds or for convenience, MPR reported.
| Facility | Beds | Reported sale price | Price per bed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prairie Correctional Facility, Appleton, Minn. | 1,600 | $495.6 million | $309,750 |
| Midwest Regional Reception Center, Kansas | 1,033 | $238.4 million | About $230,800 |
The comparison at the center of Hassan’s letters is contested. CoreCivic has told Fox 9 that the lower figure was a preliminary number from 2015, tied to an unsuccessful effort to interest Minnesota’s corrections department, not a purchase offer, and that the federal price reflects replacement cost less depreciation. An inquiry would likely turn on exactly that question: whether DHS relied on an independent appraisal, and how it valued a prison that had sat empty since 2010.
Appleton is one piece of a larger shift from leasing to owning detention space. CoreCivic said in its Nov. 4 earnings release that it sold four facilities with 7,187 beds to the federal government during the third quarter for $2.2 billion, and its chief executive, Lucibeth Mayberry, has urged ICE to “move quickly” on more deals, as covered in CoreCivic’s push to close sales before the new Congress. The administration’s position is that the space is needed: a DHS spokesperson told Fox 9 the Appleton facility “gives ICE immediate capacity to detain and remove those who have no legal right to remain.”
Oversight cannot reverse a completed purchase. A building the government owns stays in federal hands whatever a committee concludes. What a new majority can do is press for inspector general reviews, attach conditions in annual spending bills, and put officials under oath. Those levers matter because much of the money behind the expansion sits outside the annual budget fight: the 2025 reconciliation law set aside $45 billion for immigration detention through September 2029, according to Axios, and the current Senate Republican plan for fiscal 2027 Homeland Security funding leaves ICE out. Other new sites, including the planned Surprise, Ariz., detention center, are likely to draw similar questions.
For detainees and their families, the price fight is secondary to the conditions inside a remote, newly opened site, which sits in the Eighth Circuit under a no-bond rule. The next markers are whether DHS and CoreCivic respond to the letters, whether Hassan formally takes the committee chair in January, and whether ICE announces further purchases before then.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice.
Sources
- Reuters, “Democratic US senator probes CoreCivic sale of ICE facility in Minnesota” (Nov. 13, 2026)
- MPR News, “Homeland Security buys former prison in west-central Minnesota for $500 million” (Aug. 5, 2026)
- Fox 9, “ICE facility opens in Appleton, Minnesota to carry out ‘mandate for mass deportations'” (Nov. 11, 2026)
- CoreCivic, “CoreCivic Reports Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results” (Nov. 4, 2026)
- Axios, “How the GOP spending bill will fund immigration enforcement” (July 3, 2025)
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