The private prison operator slated to run an immigration detention center in Marana has applied for a business license with the town, moving toward clearing one of the final bureaucratic roadblocks before the center could become operational.
Management & Training Corporation, or MTC, signed a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in September to operate the Marana facility despite months of ongoing opposition from community members.
The former prison could reopen as an immigration detention center in the next 60 days, but needs a business license to do so.
“The company cannot lawfully reopen and operate the center without a business license,” Marana communications director Vic Hathaway said. The town received the application on Oct. 1.
Organizing group Pima Resists ICE, or PRICE, has called on town leaders to try to block the facility where they can, and say that past actions by the company should preclude the town from approving a business license.
In particular, they point to a section of the town code where it says an applicant should be denied a business license if they are guilty of fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, or that the business has been conducted in an unlawful manner or “a manner that constitutes a breach of the peace or a menace to the public health.”
The group points to MTC’s history of not reporting sexual abuse allegations, as detailed in a recent investigation by Lookout and the Intercept. It also cites violations of past contracts such as the one in an MTC-run state run prison in Kingman, where public inspections found the facility understaffed and noted numerous security concerns.
Former Gov. Doug Ducey terminated MTC’s contract to run the prison following a 2015 riot in the facility.
“It is unquestionable that this corporation has violated multiple of the standards for a business license in the town of Marana,” Caroline Isaacs, executive director of Just Communities Arizona, told Arizona Luminaria.
To obtain a business license in Marana, the applicant submits an application to the business license specialist, and then goes through the review process set out in town code. Town departments that may be impacted by the license will investigate the application and recommend approval or denial to the license inspector, said Hathaway.
The process could take several weeks, and typically has no public engagement component.
“There will not be a public review process,” Hathaway said about the MTC application. In addition, no new building permits have been issued to MTC since January 2025, she said.
How many people the former state prison will hold is an area of concern, particularly amid an uptick in deaths of people detained in immigration detention under the second Trump administration.
The center is expected to have a capacity of 775 beds and employ 338 full-time workers, according to Lawhead.
That capacity is about 50% more than the facility’s capacity of 513 when it was a state prison.
A public statement made this summer by the federal government stated an aim to push the number in the facility even higher, to nearly triple the capacity of the former prison, moving the building to 1,300-bed capacity through the use of temporary beds.
PRICE organizers have argued the use of the property as an immigration detention center plugged into a national deportation infrastructure, especially with a possible expanded bed capacity, is a significant change from the property’s previous use and requires new zoning approval.
Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona in 2025 found Marana officials told MTC only building permits and business license were required for conversion because zoning was already in place.
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