Feds buy two privately-owned California ICE detention centers for $1.5B
The Department of Homeland Security has purchased two privately-operated ICE detention facilities in California for $1.5 billion dollars, according to company officials.
Tennessee-based private prison operator CoreCivic announced Monday that it had completed the sale of the 2,560-bed California City Immigration Processing Center and the 1,994-bed Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego on July 2.
The Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on what prompted the sale.
“We have previously completed facility sales to government partners, and operating government-owned facilities is a well-established model within our business,” Ryan Gustin, senior director of Public Affairs for CoreCivic, said in a statement.
The California City facility was sold for $732.6 million, while Otay Mesa was sold for $739.2 million.
Gustin said independent appraisers used the federal government’s required appraisal process to assess the valuation of the facilities, which is designed to determine objective fair market value.
CoreCivic said it expects to continue to manage both facilities under the existing management contracts with ICE, though the contract terms could change to reflect the change in ownership. The $130 million management contract for the California City facility expires in August 2027, and the management contract for the Otay Mesa facility expires in December 2029 with a five-year extension option.
“However, the Company can provide no assurance that it will continue to manage these facilities in the future, or that the terms of the existing management agreements will remain the same,” officials said in a statement.
The California City Immigration Processing Center opened in late August 2025 to much public protest. In its first months of operations, the company and city were sued over allegations it rushed the permitting process in violation of state law. A separate lawsuit alleged inhumane conditions at the facility; a court-appointed external monitor was assigned to oversee medical care at the facility in March.
The privately-operated prison opened in the late 1990s by Corrections Corporation of America, which later became known as CoreCivic. In the early 2010s, CoreCivic had a contract with the federal government to house federal detainees who awaited trial or had pending immigration cases. It later became a privately operated state prison known as the California City Correctional Facility, which closed in 2024 after the state ended its for-profit prison contracts.
On Tuesday, the California City Planning Commission is scheduled to hear an appeal to the city’s approval of CoreCivic’s site plan review and an administrative land use approval, filed by the coalition group Dignity Not Detention. It’s not immediately clear how the sale impacts Tuesday’s hearing.
Otay Mesa, opened in 2015, has also faced legal scrutiny in recent months. San Diego County filed a lawsuit in federal court in March alleging the Trump administration illegally blocked a public health inspection of the facility, according to a report by CalMatters.
CoreCivic is also in discussions with ICE about the potential sale of additional detention facilities, company officials said.
