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On Oct. 1, the Trump administration was handed an unprecedented amount of funding to supercharge ICE. A staggering $170 billion was earmarked for immigration and border-related operations until September 2029. You can thank the Rep. Juan Ciscomani-endorsed “One Big Beautiful Bill� for this outrageous use of our taxpayer dollars. This comes at a huge cost to U.S. citizens as the trade-off are cuts to health care, food assistance, educational programs and clean energy projects. All this expense to witness masked ICE agents chase after food delivery bikers, throw people aggressively to the ground and arrest day laborers outside of Home Depot.

There are currently close to 60,000 people in ICE detention. Those numbers will continue to grow as it has become more difficult for migrants in detention to get released on bond. If you have a friend, employee or neighbor who came to our country without a visa 10 or more years ago, they will have a difficult time getting released to their family in the current environment.

The Supreme Court has also declared that racial profiling is permitted when it comes to immigrants and citizens, who are mistakenly arrested. Their recent decision gives immigration agents the right to stop and question people based on the color of their skin, their accent or the type of work they do. This will help the administration meet its quota of 3,000 ICE arrests per day.

But, at what cost will this have on our society, our economy and you, the taxpayer?

The commodification of human beings is highly problematic. The OBBB included $45 billion for ICE to build new immigration detention centers that will house both adults and children. The for-profit prison industry is already seeing huge returns. Private prison corporation CoreCivic reported revenues of $538.2 million during its 2025 second-quarter earnings, up 9.8% from the same quarter last year. Before the 2024 election, CoreCivic’s shares were at $13.19. A week after the election, they surged 81% to $23.94.

Why should southern Arizona care about this? It could be coming to Marana.

In July, the state of Arizona sold the former Marana state prison to the Management and Training Corporation (MTC) for $15 million. This sale followed State Senator John Kavanagh introducing a bill in January, which would have allowed the state to lease this prison to the federal government for $1 per year to house immigrants. This bill ultimately failed in the House but indicated that the ultimate intention for this Marana prison was to be handed over to ICE. MTC, like others in the private prison industry, has a documented history of employee abuses, complaints and lawsuits, including overtime and wage violations ($28.5 million in penalties), corruption and bribery ($5.2 million in penalties), labor relations violations, and workplace safety violations. Sure, this will create jobs, but are these really the jobs we want?

Every day we are witnessing ICE abuses across our country. We are seeing masked agents tackling people who pose no threat to them. We are witnessing loved ones taken off the streets and tossed into detention without the ability to get released. The Marana prison is only 10 miles from the Pinal Air Park. How can we be sure individuals won’t be swiftly flown to places where they will never be heard from again?

At this point, the intentions of this administration are clear. This is not about justice or safety. They are trying to detain anyone even if it means erroneously arresting U.S. citizens. All the while, the Border Czar Thomas Homan was investigated for allegedly accepting a $50,000 bribe by undercover FBI agents. The Trump administration dropped the investigation despite credible video evidence.

This has always been the administration’s intention. It was all about a money grab, and the corruption runs deep. This raises a moral question that everyone in southern Arizona should be asking themselves: Do you want this sort of activity in your backyard?

If MTC does plan to turn the prison into an ICE detention center, the community must stand up and yell, “Not in my backyard!�