A town hall is planned Friday night in Tucson for community members to hear more about the possibility of a new ICE detention center at a former state prison near the town of Marana.
The Marana prison was a state-owned facility just outside Tucson that could housed up to 500 male inmates before being closed down in 2023.
That’s when the state severed its contract with the facility operator, private prison company Management & Training Corporation, or MTC. The company built the facility in the 1990s and sold it the Arizona in 2015.
The state sold it back to MTC earlier this year for $15 million. MTC hasn’t officially announced how the facility will be used, but the company runs both prisons and ICE detention centers. And, as the Arizona Capitol Times reported earlier this year, Marana town leaders said they were informed MTC that the facility could be used for ICE detention.
Tonight’s town hall will be moderated by Pima County Supervisor Jenn Allen and will include legal groups like the ACLU of Arizona and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.
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