Marana Prison’s ICE Detention Plan Sparks Community Protests

(MARANA, ARIZONA) A plan to repurpose a shuttered state prison on the edge of Marana, Arizona into a federal Immigration detention facility has sparked a fierce backlash, with more than 350 residents packing a town hall on the evening of October 24, 2025 to denounce what they call a secretive process and a looming expansion of mass deportations. The property, once the Marana Community Correctional Treatment Facility, was sold by the state in July 2025 to private prison operator Management and Training Corporation for $15 million, and signs now point to its potential role in a larger federal effort to add detention beds across the country.

The protest capped weeks of rising tension after residents learned the Utah-based firm, known as MTC, purchased the site in July 2025 and immediately began positioning to supply detention space under federal contracts. While the company has not publicly confirmed it intends to turn the compound into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement site, an MTC spokesperson in May told local media the property would be used for “detention purposes.” In a town where the prison closed just two years ago, the sudden prospect of buses and barbed wire returning has shaken people who say they were kept in the dark.

“The company’s refusal to communicate is an insult to our community,” one Marana resident stated during the meeting.

Tension inside the meeting hall was palpable, with boos and hisses punctuating a forum moderated by Pima County Supervisor Jennifer Allen. Veteran Stevie Rendino, who said she has called southern Arizona home for years, stood to say she felt betrayed by the secrecy and pace of the process.

“I fought for freedom or so they told me, and now here I am having to protest a secret police,” she said,

while Marana resident Bennett Burke described his reaction as “outrage, I’m outraged at all of this.” The anger has focused in part on a paper trail that appears to align the site with a federal push to expand detention: MTC hired Washington-based Upstream Consulting, Inc., shortly after President Donald Trump’s second term began to lobby for “Funding for ICE detention beds,” and in May 2025 the company finalized an “indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity” contract with ICE allowing the agency to order unspecified amounts of detention services through May 2027.

A planning document obtained by the Washington Post identified the property as a priority for immigration authorities, with internal projections suggesting the facility could add roughly 500 beds to Arizona’s capacity. Federal officials have been working toward a nationwide target of approximately 107,000 detention beds—double the previously funded level—according to the document. If it proceeds, Arizona’s ICE detention space would nearly double under the plan, placing the former Marana prison at the center of a broader national expansion. Residents say that scale is precisely the point: a massive increase would change their community, with more transfers, more court appearances, and more families in limbo.

The site’s history is familiar to many in Marana, Arizona. MTC ran the facility as a minimum security prison from the mid-1990s until 2013 under contracts with the state. In 2023, Governor Katie Hobbs shuttered the unit after the inmate population fell to just 225 people despite a contracted capacity of nearly 475 beds, costing the state about $5 million a year for unused bed payments. After the state put the property up for sale, MTC emerged as the buyer and closed the deal in July 2025. Now, a community that thought it had moved beyond the prison era is grappling with what could replace it.

For town officials, the controversy has laid bare their limited authority. Because the state owned the land and the property was already zoned for prison use, the sale required no local approval. The Town of Marana said in August 2025 it was not involved in the state’s procurement process and therefore did not track local reactions or concerns. Only one member of the Marana Town Council, Patrick Cavanaugh, attended the late October forum. He told residents the town had few levers to pull, given the ownership and federal context.

“We’re not paying their bills, so there’s really nothing we can do,” he said. “In everything we’re seeing across this country, they’re not giving any due process. These are our neighbors, you know? That’s the problem here.”

Advocates underscored that the critical decisions were made far from the town hall. “I just want to point out that the state of Arizona did sell this to MTC. They didn’t have to,” said Noah Schramm, Immigrants’ Rights and Border Policy Strategist at the ACLU of Arizona, noting that contracting choices at the state level are now set to ripple through one of southern Arizona’s fastest-growing communities. Residents at the forum said they worry that ICE transfers to and from the facility would become a daily routine, as detainees cycle through hearings and possible deportations in a system already under strain.

The Governor’s Office defended the sale on fiscal grounds. Liliana Soto, press secretary for Governor Hobbs, said the transaction freed the state from recurring costs tied to an empty building.

“The administration had a choice: either keep wasting taxpayer dollars maintaining a building the state wasn’t using, or sell it for money that can be used to expand access to affordable child care, invest in public education and fight veteran homelessness,” she said.

Soto also distanced state leaders from any future immigration use of the former prison.

“The Governor’s Office is not in contact with the federal government about immigration detention facilities and will not partner with the federal government on immigration detention,” she said.

The federal backdrop looms large. Congress this year approved $45 billion for new detention centers, a 256% annual budget increase to ICE’s current detention budget, according to the American Immigration Council. At least 20 people have died in ICE custody in 2025, making it the deadliest year since 2005, while the agency detains nearly 60,000 people—its highest population in several years. For relatives of detainees and immigrant legal service providers in the region, those numbers translate to more urgent casework and longer drives to reach clients if a new site opens in Marana. The Florence Project, which provides free legal services to people in detention, said its staff has been watching job postings as a barometer for when operations might begin. Liz Casey of the project has been monitoring online listings closely, noting that hiring would be a strong signal that the facility is moving toward activation.

At stake for the community are the daily realities of living near a large Immigration detention facility. When the compound operated near capacity in 2017, with 487 inmates, it employed 119 people—numbers that some see as a potential economic boost and others view as a dependency on incarceration. MTC, which would count Marana as its sixth federal immigration detention center if the project goes forward, already runs five such facilities in the United States and one in Australia, along with a network of correctional institutions, Job Corps centers, and treatment programs. The company has told reporters only that the site is earmarked for “detention purposes,” without specifying which agency or population it would serve.

Supporters of conversion say the country needs more beds as arrests rise and courts slog through backlogs. Republican State Senator John Kavanagh, who introduced Senate Bill 1294 earlier this year to lease the Marana site to ICE for $1 per year, argued that a dedicated center would relieve pressure on local jails.

“While they’re being processed, we don’t want to overcrowd them in office jail cells or local jails – let’s have a nice facility and they can get their due process, or they can wait for their flight out there,” he said.

His bill passed the Senate but died in the House, leaving the issue to private contracting and federal demand.

Opponents counter that building out detention capacity invites harsher enforcement while offering little transparency. Residents at the forum said they were alarmed by an “indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity” contract with ICE that allows orders for detention services through May 2027, a structure they fear could steadily scale up operations without public input. The Washington Post’s reporting that the facility is a federal priority only intensified those concerns. With a projected 500 additional beds, they say Marana could become a regional hub almost overnight, reshaping traffic patterns, court dockets, and the work of social service organizations.

Town leaders stressed there is no local permit to deny. The land’s existing prison zoning means MTC does not need to seek a variance to run detention operations, whether for state prisoners, federal detainees, or another custodial population. That regulatory reality has left the political fight to public pressure and media scrutiny. Residents demanded that MTC brief the community directly, disclose its federal contracting details, and commit to regular communication, saying the absence of clear answers fueled mistrust. For now, the company has declined to confirm or deny that ICE would be the primary client for the Marana site.

The turbulence in Marana, Arizona mirrors national fault lines over how, and where, to hold people during immigration proceedings. In Washington, lawmakers have steered tens of billions toward detention construction and operations, while federal agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, manage a patchwork of government-run and privately operated sites. In Arizona, detention space is concentrated along major corridors and near immigration courts. Adding hundreds of beds in Marana would shift that map, potentially drawing transfers from other facilities and increasing the number of families seeking to visit loved ones across long distances in southern Arizona.

Residents who spoke at the forum said they fear the human cost most. Some described neighbors with mixed-status families and schoolchildren worried about relatives in removal proceedings. Others warned of the risk that new beds would sit full because of how federal contracts operate, creating an incentive to detain rather than release people on alternatives to detention. Cavanaugh’s comments resonated in the room, where the line between national policy and local life felt thin.

“In everything we’re seeing across this country, they’re not giving any due process. These are our neighbors, you know? That’s the problem here,” he said,

echoing concerns that quick transfers and remote hearings can make it harder for detainees to access counsel and family support.

For Governor Hobbs’ office, the debate boils down to what the state can control. The sale, Soto said, eliminated upkeep costs tied to an idle property and recouped funds that can be redirected to social priorities. Beyond that, she said, the administration will not partner with federal immigration detention. The distance between that stance and the reality of a private, federally funded detention center operating in Marana has left residents asking who, if anyone, can be held accountable for any abuses or failures that may occur inside.

MTC’s past presence in town is both a source of expertise and anxiety. Longtime residents remember the rhythms of shift changes and deliveries, while reform advocates recall disputes over conditions in privately run prisons statewide. If the Marana compound becomes an ICE site, oversight would involve federal standards and inspections that differ from the state correctional system’s rules, yet much of the day-to-day would be driven by a private operator’s policies. That prospect, paired with the national drive to rapidly expand bed space, is why opponents say the stakes are so high.

As the meeting wrapped, attendees traded phone numbers and pledged to keep pressing for answers—about contracts, timelines, and who, exactly, would be held in their backyard. Several said they would organize visits to other detention centers to document conditions and share those findings with neighbors. Others planned to track hiring, echoing Liz Casey’s view that job postings often signal when a facility is ramping up. For now, the only certainty is that the sale has set Marana on a collision course with a much broader federal detention agenda.

The next flashpoint is likely to be when, or if, ICE or MTC confirms the facility’s intended use. Given the “indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity” agreement and the internal projection of 500 beds, residents say the window to shape outcomes is closing. What they want, they say, is simple: clarity, a chance to weigh in before buses arrive, and a commitment that those held inside—if the site opens—will have access to counsel and fair process. Whether that happens will depend on decisions made far beyond this desert town, even as the impact will be felt on its streets, in its schools, and across the families who call Marana home.