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Late last week EM Knepp, for Project Salt Box (PSB), a nonprofit publication that monitors ICE activity nationwide issued the following report to its subscsribers:
On Thursday, June 4th, ICE announced its plans to reopen a detention faciity that has been closed since 2010. The Prairie Correctional Facility – soon to be called the Prairie Detention Facility – is owned by private prison company CoreCivic.
At capacity, the facility will hold 1,600 male and female detainees, with an initial 150 detainees the first week and 250 additional every week thereafter. Citing their need for an “increase in bed capacity to meet the admiistration’s interior enforcement and border decompression goals” ICE plans to award the comprehensive detention services contract to CoreCivic, given the company owns and has historically operated the facility according to the PSB report issued on Friday, June 5, 2026.
The Prairie facility has been closed for over 15 years and the contract requires CoreCivil to plan, manage and complete all renovations necessary to ensure it meets the most current National Detention Standards. Once the facility is approved for operation, CoreCivil will be responsible for every aspect of running it, including security/guards, housing, meals and transportation.
Medical care is also built into the contract at a significant level. CoreCivic will have to provide 24/7 on-site health care including intake screening, comprehensive health assesments, sick call, mental health services, dental care, prescription medications and emergency response coordination. The facility must also support disability accommodations and suicide prevention procedures.
The contract gives ICE near total control over who can see inside the facility, including members of Congress and its staff. A dedicated access section makes clear that ICE, not CoreCivic or local officials, decides who may enter secure areas, when tours occur and what visitors are allowed to observe. Even when congressional offices or committeees request information, they cannot go directly to the contractor – the PWS requires CoreCivil to route all data, records and responses through ICE, which then decides what to share and when. While this may be standard language in detention contracts, it comes as members of Congress are actively fighting DHS in court just to exercise their statutory right to conduct uannounced inspections of ICE facilities. In the last year alone, lawmakers have been denied entry to multiple detention centers and have sued the Trump administration over new policies that impose advance notice requirements and effectively block real time oversight of conditions on the ground.
CoreCivil has a maximum 90 day “transition-in” period after award to complete renovations, with detainee intake beginning on day 91 and ramping up by 150 people the first week and 250 more each week thereafter until the facility hits 1,6oo beds. The same section requires a detailed mobilization plan and a government-approved operations schedle, but it does not say when ICE actually intends to award the contract or when that 90 day clock will start.
ICE’s move to reopen Prairie fits into a broader strategy to rapidly expand detention capacity by leaning on private prison infrastructure that already exists. The agency has faced mounting local oppositdion to its plan to convert warehouses into large detention hubs, particularly in urban areas where zonig fights, environmental review and organizing by immigrant rights groups can slow or kill projects.
Reopening shuttered prisons like Prairie offers ICE a faster, often quieter path to increasing detention bedspace. The facility already has a carceral footprint, is located in a rural community familiar with prison operations and can be brought online through a single, sole-source contract with a company that has run it before. ICE and CoreCivic did not imnediately respond to requests for comment.
For more inforation on the work of Poject Salt Box, please visit two different posts herein on May 30, 2026.
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