The childhood memories of visiting her father while he was detained at Florence Correctional Center are seared into Brinley Carrillo’s mind.
“Every month we packed tortas in a cooler and we drove an hour to visit my father. I couldn’t comprehend why the officers were so harsh to my brother and I, only aged 7 and 9 at the time,” said Carrillo, now an adult and an organizer speaking at a news conference against a proposed immigration detention facility in Marana on Tuesday.
“I have vivid memories of having to go and visit him and experience the trauma of being treated as less than human, seeing my father treated as less than human.”
Now, living in Tucson during the second Trump administration, she fears the opening of a new immigration detention center in a nearby town and what it means for immigrant communities in the area.
“When people think of Marana, they will only ever think of their missing piece,” Carrillo said. “We will only ever think of the hundreds of thousands of dollars of profits that are made from detaining our siblings, our aunts, our uncles, our parents and our loved ones.”
This summer, Congress approved $45 billion for immigration detention, part of an increase in spending for immigration enforcement that experts say has significantly grown America’s immigration enforcement apparatus.
One of those new detention centers appears to be slated for Marana. The site is near Silverbell Road and Sanders Road.
The federal government posted a notice in February announcing its intention to award a contract for a shuttered Marana prison to be turned into an immigration facility and named Management & Training Corporation as the sole operator that would meet that need in its timeframe.
“DHS/ICE needs to increase bed capacity to meet the administration’s interior enforcement and border decompression goals,” the notice read.
That comes as immigration detention nationwide saw the highest number of deaths in custody in Fiscal Year 2025 than any year since 2004.
Local groups have raised concerns about what an expansion of immigration detention would mean for their communities. A group created specifically to resist the detention center, named Pima Resists I.C.E., has led efforts to sound the alarm and pressure public officials.
That pressure has become only more urgent following the recent death of Emmanuel Damas, a Haitian asylum seeker, detained at the Florence Detention Center. Damas died following complaints of an untreated tooth infection.
Organizers and elected officials say they are using all the tools available to them to stop the Marana detention facility, from federal investigations and local resolutions to creative legal strategies alongside ongoing public pressure.
“There is little oversight of detention centers. Private, for-profit, correctional and detention corporations are based outside of Arizona. They have no contractor agreement with the town of Marana or Pima County. They are not subject to oversight by town, county or state,” said Pima County Supervisor Jen Allen. “There are few internal checks and balances, and those that do exist are often not followed.”
Arizona Luminaria took a dive into what oversight tools could exist for a possible immigration detention facility near Tucson:
The federal government
The Enforcement and Removal Operations unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement oversees the nation’s immigration detention facilities. The agency often contracts operations of these facilities to private companies.
On Feb. 25, the federal government shared a procurement memo for an operator to run the detention center in Marana for two years.
While the federal government and the company that will be chosen to run the center oversee nutrition, hygiene and safety in civil immigration detention, watchdog organizations say oversight mechanisms to catch abuses or poor conditions have been weakened under the Trump administration.
In early 2025, the Trump administration rolled back operations at two agencies that had key roles in investigating civil rights violations by DHS as well as detention conditions, said John Mitchell, an immigrant rights’ attorney with the ACLU of Arizona.
Today, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman’s operations remain limited, said Mitchell. “The Trump Administration has demonstrated consistent neglect toward ensuring the quality and legality of its detention operations, and has instead characterized crucial oversight mechanisms as bureaucratic hurdles.”
Groups including the American Immigration Council, local and national ACLU offices and Arizona-based nonprofits like Tucson-based legal advocacy group Florence Immigrant And Refugee Rights Project, all conduct investigations and make reports into detention conditions.
Liz Casey, a social worker with the Florence Project, said the lack of oversight has meant more verbal and physical abuse for people detained in Arizona.
“Oversight agencies have essentially been completely dismantled,” said Casey. “ICE and guards are really able to act with even more impunity and very little accountability. It has led to an increased atmosphere of abuse, neglect and just fear inside the detention centers.”
ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight is tasked by Congress to make facility inspections, but over the past year, the nonprofit newsroom the Project on Government Oversight and American University found that even as detention soared in 2025, inspections dropped by 36.25%
Political leaders at the federal level have worked to bring attention to conditions in immigration detention through efforts to visit the centers, advocate for particularly vulnerable people who are detained and demand investigations into specific incidents of concern.
Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva, joined by Reps. Greg Stanton and Yassamin Ansari, sent a letter on Feb. 19 to now-outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons asking for clarity on the possibility of a detention center opening in a shuttered prison in Marana.
On March 9, the group sent a letter to Noem asking for an investigation into the death of Emmanuel Damas at Florence.
“His death is unacceptable and raises grave concerns over treatment and quality of healthcare that individuals in ICE custody receive,” the letter said. “Additionally, this incident calls into question the training, standards and guidelines that DHS provides to ICE and detention center staff.”
A spokesperson for Grijalva’s office said they have received confirmation of these letters being received, but no formal response. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
Senators Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly have also backed a bill that would require DHS to get public comment as well as written approval from state and local officials before building or acquiring new detention centers.
Management and Training Corporation
The building, formerly a state prison, is owned by private prison operator Management and Training Corporation, or MTC, which bought it from the state in 2025. MTC had previously operated a minimum security prison in the building until 2023.
While no final agreement has been made, the federal procurement order shared Feb. 25 names MTC: “Management & Training Corporation is the sole owner and operator of the Marana detention facility that meets ICE requirements in the timeframe.”
In a statement to Arizona Luminaria, MTC said the company had a long track record of working with local leaders, businesses and residents to be a strong community partner.
“If an agreement is finalized, our focus will remain on restoring good local jobs, supporting the Marana economy, and operating the facility with high standards of safety, professionalism, and dignity.”
MTC does not currently operate any detention or correctional facilities in Arizona, according to facility maps on its website.
The capacity of the Marana detention center is 500 people, according to a 2023 press release from the governor’s office about the sale of the state prison.
The procurement order, however, asks for the facility in Marana to be prepared to hold 775 detainees.
That’s not possible without hurting the people detained inside, say attorneys.
Federal order seeks major capacity increase at proposed Marana ICE detention center
A former prison in Marana slated to become an immigration detention center has a capacity of 513 people, according to state documents. But a procurement… Keep reading
“There is no way to raise the population by that amount in an ethical way,” said immigration attorney Daniela Ugaz, who leads the Pima Resists I.C.E. legal research team. “As an immigration attorney I’ve worked a lot in these detention centers and I’ve seen, when the population surges, there is abuse, devastation, medical neglect resulting in death and safety concerns all rise.”
Mitchell with the ACLU of Arizona said increasing capacity was coming at the expense of quality and, in some cases, legality. “DHS has yet to answer basic questions about its proposed expansions, and the Marana prison facility is no different. When a facility pushes up against the limits of its own capacity, it compromises the safety and dignity of every detainee kept within its walls,” Mitchell said.
Watchdog groups have raised concerns about conditions at other MTC facilities:
- The MTC-owned and operated Imperial Regional Detention Facility in California did not have a nebulizer to help a detained person who eventually died of bronchopneumonia; at the time, the company had a policy to reorder medical supplies every two months regardless of whether they ran out earlier, according to a 2018 Human Rights Watch report.
- At Otero County Processing Center a report from immigrant rights group Freedom for Immigrants found over 200 complaints of abuse between 2015 and 2018 that included inadequate food and medical attention, limited access to hygiene supplies and harassment by guards.
- A lack of access to clean water, medication, along with freezing temperatures and lack of access to legal services were identified by Amnesty International from an April 2025 visit to the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Texas.
- The El Valle Detention Facility in Texas was formerly the Willacy Detention Center, where advocates identified poor medical care, sexual abuse and overuse of solitary confinement in 2018.
- IAH Polk Adult Detention Facility in Texas has had at least one detained person die following their detention, in 2017. The ACLU of Texas has called for the facility to be shut down due to inadequate medical care and extensive use of solitary confinement.
State of Arizona
When the building in Marana was a state prison, state law required annual reporting from the Arizona Department of Corrections on inmate deaths, suicides and suicide attempts, assaults, solitary confinement and lockdowns, staff ratios, turnover rates and more.
Earlier this year, a federal judge ordered an independent operator to take over health care at state prisons following years of complaints.
As a federal facility, the state and local judges do not have those same oversight tools for the Marana site.
MTC held a state contract to operate a minimum security prison in the building slated for the immigration detention center until 2023, when the state ended the contract because the facility was operating at less than half capacity, according to a news release from Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office.
The Arizona Department of Administration, a state agency that acts as the administrative hub for state government, sold the building back to MTC in July for $15 million.
“The state sold the facility and no longer has jurisdiction over it. If the federal government proceeds with detaining people there, the governor will closely monitor their plans to protect Arizonans’ constitutional rights and public safety,” said governor’s office press secretary Liliana Soto.
Pima County officials
Some Pima County officials have been active in considering how regional government can address concerns about the Marana detention center.
District 3 Supervisor Jen Allen convened a community meeting in October with panelists from the ACLU of Arizona, Just Communities Arizona and the Florence Project that helped spur the creation of Pima Resists I.C.E.
In February, county supervisors passed a resolution against the opening of an immigration detention center in Marana.
“It is our ethical and moral responsibility as County government to protect the welfare [of] all residents and to be responsible stewards of our land and resources,” the resolution said.
That can then help Arizona’s Congressional delegation in their inquiries to federal officials, said Allen.
“I’m also proud of the Pima County Board of Supervisors who passed a resolution last month opposing this detention center, calling on other municipalities to stand along with us, and supporting our congressional delegation, including leaders like Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, who were pushing the federal level to oppose this site,” Allen said at Tuesday’s news conference.
The Pima County Health Department is not the primary public health body with authority within facilities operated by federal agencies, according to a memo from county Administrator Jan Lesher, but has worked with federal authorities in the past around measles outbreaks or COVID-19.
“If an ICE detention facility becomes operational in Pima County, the Health Department will maintain communication with facility leadership and ADHS [Arizona Department of Health Services] and respond to federal requests as appropriate,” wrote public health director Theresa Cullen in a county memo.
The town of Marana
Emails shared with Arizona Luminaria by the ACLU of Arizona, along with a series of documents obtained directly through a public records request by Arizona Luminaria in 2025, show several email exchanges between Marana town officials and a private prison executive between May and October 2025.
The communications included discussions about what permits are required to turn a former state prison into a federal immigration detention facility.
Vic Hathaway, communications manager with the town of Marana, told Arizona Luminaria that Marana was not a party to the agreement between the federal government and MTC, but had a longstanding working relationship with the company.
“MTC previously operated a detention facility at this location for many years, during which the Town experienced a professional and cooperative relationship. We have communicated with MTC and have been assured they are open to meeting with the Town and residents to address concerns and answer questions should the agreement move forward. At this time, details have not been finalized,” Hathaway said.
The detention center has been a consistent part of public comment during town council meetings. While most speakers have opposed the detention center, some Marana residents have spoken in favor.
Ricky Guthridge, speaking at the Feb. 3 town council meeting, said he supports immigration enforcement of people who came to the United States without documentation. “If they had respect for the law, they would have shown up and done the legal process,” Guthridge said.
Community and organizing pressure
Amid the rise in enforcement, longtime community organizing groups have revved up their efforts and new groups have worked to fill gaps in need for support.
Immigrant rights group Derechos Humanos hosts monthly meetings for working groups that include court accompaniment and rapid response networks.
Pima Resists I.C.E. came together to oppose the Marana detention center, and since last fall has been pressuring local political leaders to pass resolutions by attending council meetings and holding rallies. The group includes several Marana residents planning to run for town council in the future.
Ugaz, head of the group’s legal research team, says they have been consulting land-use attorneys, advocacy attorneys, and requesting public records.
“Our legal options do not follow a straight line — there’s never a straight line to be followed when you’re battling against an extremely well resourced and powerful corporation that is also immoral, which is proven by the fact that they pedal in the warehousing of human beings.”
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