https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/ice-paid-private-prison-firm-190044965.html -- in part:
The Minnesota Department of Corrections confirmed Friday that former owner CoreCivic said it was willing to sell the former Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton to the state for $75 million last May.
CoreCivic turned around and sold the 1,600-bed facility to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for $495.6 million in August, with plans to use it as a detention center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees.
Swift County assessed the property's total market value at $14.75 million in 2026.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is now calling on Congress to investigate the federal government's "massive $420 million overpayment" to CoreCivic using taxpayer money.
"Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in living memory, and even for him, this is shocking," Ellison said in a statement Friday. "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. Trump scamming taxpayers out of almost half a billion dollars is outrageous, especially at a time when Trump's tariffs and war in Iran are already raising prices for Minnesotans."
[...] CoreCivic told KARE 11 that "the federal government ultimately determined the sale price following its assessment process."
Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith questioned the seemingly inflated sale price in a social media post Friday.
"So we're supposed to believe there's no money for health care, but there's enough money for ICE to spend nearly $500 million buying an abandoned private prison in MN that was originally offered for sale at $75 million just last year? If that sounds like taxpayers are getting ripped off, it's because you are."
At the direction of now-former CoreCivic CEO Patrick D. Swindle, the private prison company donated $500,000 to President Donald Trump's 2025 inaugural committee and contributed $1.77 million towards lobbying for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which enabled Homeland Security to buy the detention centers.
Ask yourself, what is at all wrong in a Senator saying, "So we're supposed to believe there's no money for health care, but there's enough money for ICE to spend nearly $500 million buying an abandoned private prison in MN that was originally offered for sale at $75 million just last year? If that sounds like taxpayers are getting ripped off, it's because you are."
Say to yourself, Nothing is wrong with telling the truth. Which is what Tina Smith did. As did Ellison.
UPDATE: Personnel revolving door worries are documented at https://thedetentionfiles.org/the-evidence/
When the door revolves, and money is bled, wtf is being done by these people?