On August 5, 2026, the private prison company CoreCivic told investors it had sold the 1,600-bed Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota, to the United States through the Department of Homeland Security for $495.6 million, MPR News reported. The prison, vacant since 2010, is to hold ICE detainees. CoreCivic keeps a five-year contract to run it, with about $75 million a year in expected revenue, and sold a Kansas facility for $238.4 million in the same statement.
On October 29, KARE 11 reported, citing newly unsealed emails, that CoreCivic had offered the same prison to Minnesota for $75 million in May 2025, a price the Independent says included upgrades. The tracker could not load KARE 11's report or The New York Times's coverage, so KARE's findings appear here through outlets that cite it. Two state officials confirm the offer on the record: Attorney General Keith Ellison and Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell, who turned it down.
The gap between the two prices is $420.6 million, but the two deals may not be comparable. The offer came about 15 months before the sale, it went to a state rather than the federal government, and its price included upgrades, while the federal sale came alongside a separate management contract. The reports the tracker read do not explain how the federal price was set beyond the company's statement.
A CoreCivic spokesperson said independent appraisers used a “cost-based methodology” and said, “The federal government ultimately determined the sale price following its assessment process.” As reported, the company does not dispute the offer. Schnell said, “Obviously, I was stunned given the reality of the offer that had been made to us just a little over a year prior to that,” according to The New Republic. The tracker found no DHS or ICE response; the Independent said it had asked both for comment.
The Independent, citing KARE 11, reported that Appleton was one of four prisons CoreCivic sold the government this summer for a combined $2.2 billion, and that federal records show a $500,000 CoreCivic donation to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee. No report the tracker read shows that the donation affected the price, or that Trump personally set it. The purchase serves his deportation program: the proposed contract said the site was needed to “meet the administration's interior enforcement and border compression goals,” MPR reported.
Ellison, a Democrat, asked the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees and House Oversight to investigate, saying in a statement, “I'm calling on House and Senate Homeland Security Committees, and the House Oversight Committee, to immediately begin investigating why Trump paid almost half a billion to a Trump donor for a prison worth just $75 million.” The word “worth” and the donor framing are his.
Asked about the sale on October 30 at an anti-fraud event in St. Cloud, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “Uh, yeah, I don't know anything about that, what we are here to do is prosecute criminal fraud and any question like that that deflects away from it I think is a waste of our time, thanks,” The New Republic reported. The Independent quoted a September Government Accountability Office report on ICE's buying: “ICE's purchase of existing detention facilities has the potential to result in waste.” The purchase follows the plan described in ICE Moves to Buy Its Detention Centers From GEO Group and CoreCivic to Shield Them From State Oversight, and the GEO CEO Admits That's the Point.
Separately, a CREW analysis found that Trump's brokers traded private prison stocks, including CoreCivic, during his term (see Trump's Brokers Began Trading Private Prison Stock Ten Days Into His Term, as Those Companies Profited From His Detention Policy). No report the tracker read ties those trades to this sale.