A private, for-profit prison company plans to reopen a former state prison in Marana as an immigration detention center by Dec. 1.
Management & Training Corporation said it anticipates reopening the former prison as a detention center within 60 days of signing a contract Sept. 29 with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The new detention center will have 775 beds and employ about 338 full-time employees, the Centerville, Utah-based company said in a statement.
The new detention center in Marana, which has drawn vocal opposition by some residents, comes as the Trump administration is undergoing a rapid expansion of immigration detention space in Arizona and other states as part of its mass deportation campaign.
detention expansion in Arizona? What we know
Opponents plan to protest the opening of the detention center at a news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 6, said Bennett Burke, a Marana resident and co-founder of Pima Resists ICE.
The group also intends to raise several questions, including concerns that the facility could house up to 1,300 people at a time, and also concerns about Management & Training Corporation's track record running the former prison, Burke said.
"We're very disappointed, outraged," Burke said. "It's not good for the town of Marana. There are many unanswered questions. There is still confusion as to the number of people who will be housed there and what will happen if they exceed one number and go to their maximum number that's being thrown around. The town of Marana isn't asking the hard questions. They've just seemed to be happy to have this in the community, and we are not."
U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Arizona, whose district includes Marana, said she plans to join local residents at the news conference following a report in Lookout and The Intercept that MTC’s record of overseeing state prison conditions included alleged sexual abuse, inadequate food, extreme heat, and prison riots before their contracts were terminated by the state under both Democratic and Republican governors.
Management and Training Corporation did not immediately respond to a request to respond to the allegations in Lookout and The Intercept reports.
Marana Mayor Jon Post acknowledged the controversy surrounding the agreement between Management & Training Corporation and ICE on the town's website.
But he said the town is not a party to the agreement. The property has operated as a correctional facility for decades and is appropriately zoned under the town’s existing land-use regulations for this type of use, Post said. As a result, the town does not have authority whether the facility is operated as a prison or an ICE detention center, he said.
“We recognize that there are strong opinions within our community and we’ve heard from residents both in support of and in opposition to the center,” Post wrote. “Marana Police Department remains committed to community safety and will work with all law enforcement partners, including the facility’s operators, to serve that goal."
Arizona set to become even more of an immigration detention hub
The Trump administration is pumping billions of dollars into the goal of creating the infrastructure to hold at least 100,000 people in immigration detention centers across the country at any given time, which would help eliminate a major choke point that has hampered the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts.
The facility in Marana is one of several immigration detention centers that ICE plans to open in Arizona as part of the detention expansion, turning the border state into an even larger immigration detention and deportation hub than it already is.
On Sept. 21, ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security, signed a $1.2 billion contract with GardaWorld Federal Services, the U.S. subsidiary of Canada-based security company, GardaWorld, to expand an existing immigration detention center 60 miles south east of Phoenix, the Florence Service Processing Center.
GardaWorld is the same company that was awarded a $313.4 million DHS/ICE contract in March to convert a 418,000-square-foot commercial warehouse in Surprise, a suburb northwest of Phoenix, into an immigration detention facility. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement purchased the warehouse in Surprise in January for $70 million.
ICE also already contracts with CoreCivic, a private for-profit prison company based near Nashville, to hold immigration detainees at the Central Arizona Florence Correctional Center, a prison the company operates in Florence, and to operate a 1,500-bed immigration detention center in Eloy, about 60 miles from Phoenix.
ICE also contracts with another private prison company, LaSalle Corrections, based outside Alexandria, Louisiana, to operate the San Luis Regional Detention Center, near Yuma.
ICE also contracts with CSI Aviation to carry out deportation-related flights out of the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center, based at the Mesa Gateway Airport.
In the latest contract, Management & Training Corporation, known as MTC, signed a $25.8 million contract with ICE to provide "comprehensive housing, transportation and medical services," according to SAM.gov, a federal government website that manages contracts with private companies.
The MTC contract has a potential value of $355.4 million, according to SAM.gov.
The company is focused on operating the new detention center in Marana "safely and professionally, meeting and exceeding ICE's National Detention Standards and "providing compassionate care to the people entrusted in us," a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
MTC operated the former Marana state prison under contract with the Arizona Department of Corrections for nearly 30 years starting in 1994. The 500-bed prison closed in 2023 due to a decline in the state's inmate population.
The Arizona Department of Administration sold the Arizona State Prison-Marana to MTC for $15 million in July 2025.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Former prison in Marana to reopen soon as immigration detention center
