Marana mayor insists council’s ‘hands are tied’ regarding potential ICE detention center

MARANA, Ariz. – Kristin Downing has lived in Marana for more than 20 years. She raised two teenagers in the northwest Tucson suburb, taking them to the local park, the library and the community pool. She is also a community organizer with Pima Resists ICE (PRICE), a recently formed organization fighting the potential opening of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Marana. 

On Tuesday night, Downing addressed her elected representatives for the first time during the Town of Marana's weekly council meeting.

“I sat out here in the audience for the past couple of months, watching person after person get up here and talk like Alyssa just did, shaking hands, shaking voices. It's scary,” Downing said.  “And people come up here and lay themselves bare and vulnerable and tell you why and how this detention center will impact them.”

Since November, organizers and Marana residents have been asking city council members to meet with them to talk about the potential opening of a detention center in Marana. Tuesday was the sixth meeting in which about a dozen people spoke out against a detention center in Marana.

But Marana Mayor Jon Post had one thing to say to the crowd: “The Town Council’s hands are tied.” 

“None of us want it. There's not a council member on here that wants it, but our hands are more tied than you know,” Post told the frustrated residents. “This is not something I want for a community. We don't want this division. Nobody wants division in their community.”

Management and Training Corporation (MTC), which operates immigration detention and correctional facilities across the country, bought the former Marana prison in July from the Arizona Department of Administration for $15 million. MTC was the prison's previous owner before the state acquired it in 2013. The prison continued to operate until it was shuttered in 2023. 

While neither the company nor federal immigration officials have confirmed plans for the site, records have shown the company’s interest in moving forward. 

In July, Congress passed Trump’s budget bill, which included $45 billion for ICE detention to be spent through 2029. A report published Wednesday by the American Immigration Council calculates that with the additional funding, “ICE could potentially acquire enough detention beds to house 135,000 people at any given time, more than three times the entire capacity of the system at the time President Trump took office.”

Organizers on Tuesday said the mayor and council members are trying to ignore the problem and are not doing their jobs. Downing told the council she’s disappointed that her elected officials have either ignored or said no to their residents’ requests to meet. 

“You keep saying there's nothing you can do, but we have so many people within PRICE, different organizations, people with varied backgrounds, who have been working nonstop since October, finding ways that you can stop this,” Downing said. “So if you really wish to stop it, we can help you do that. But we would like to sit and have a conversation.”

Residents demand to be heard

One after another, Marana and Pima County residents urged council members to pass a resolution, meet with their constituents and listen to their proposed strategies to stop the potential opening of an immigration detention center in their town. 

Caroline Isaacs, who’s worked with nonprofits in Arizona for more than 20 years, opposing for-profit incarceration, told council members it’s their job to protect their residents and to answer to them.

While Marana resident Michael Rothenberg said increasing ICE presence in the town has been a growing topic of conversation in his neighborhood ever since an ICE agent killed Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier this month. He said an ICE facility would make Marana residents feel less safe. 

“I respectfully ask that you use your authority to make it perfectly clear to MTC that an ICE detention facility does not belong in Marana and must never be in Marana,” Rothenberg said.

Vice Mayor Roxanne Ziegler read aloud her response to emails requesting a meeting on the matter. 

“I have reviewed the documents you sent and have listened intently to you and your colleagues to speak at or call the public item at several of our council meetings,” Ziegler read. “Unfortunately, I don't think a meeting would be a good use of our time.”

Upset at her response, people interrupted, accusing her of being “MAGA” and a Trump supporter. 

“We could not be further apart on the feelings on this detention center,” she added.

Mayor Post said that he won’t put anything regarding the MTC facility on the council’s meeting agenda. He said he has reached out to MTC and told them, “This is not the right thing for our community.”

Post said he’s trying to protect Marana from a lawsuit the town attorney and town manager have said is inevitable if they try to block an MTC immigration detention center. 

“I have to try to figure out a way to protect the town from what is guaranteed to be a winning, expensive, expensive lawsuit,” Post said. “And if one of you guys want to come and tell me you got that figured out, I'd be happy to meet with you.”

Prior to the council meeting, PRICE organizers drafted a resolution outlining several reasons an immigration detention center would be harmful to the Town of Marana. The resolution concludes by officially stating the council’s opposition to the probable center.

“We commit to work with Management and Training Corporation and the community to determine sustainable development alternatives for this property,” the resolution says. “We urge the Department of Homeland Security to suspend any existing or pending agreement with MTC regarding a federal detention facility in Marana.” 

Leaving the meeting, Isaacs told CALÓ News that she had hoped the council would at least consider voting on the resolution. 

“We had hoped that, because we had done the city council's job for them of doing the research into this and writing a resolution… all they need to do is sign, saying what the mayor just told us, which is that none of them want this and that they are all opposed,” Isaacs said. 

Mobilization against MTC, ICE partnership continues

Downing said she would like to see the mayor and Marana’s lawyers meet with the ACLU lawyers involved in PRICE to discuss strategies to avoid a lawsuit.

The council's vote on a resolution formally opposing a detention center and its meeting with constituents are the least they could do, Downing added. 

In December, an MTC spokesperson told CALÓ News they have been “in discussions with several public agencies that may have a need for additional bed space.”

“While there has been speculation that the Marana facility will be used in partnership with ICE or for detention purposes, we have no contract in place and continue to explore opportunities with several prospective partners,” Emily Lawhead, director of communications for MTC told CALÓ News in an email last month. 

In an email on Wednesday, Lawhead told CALO News, “We still do not have any updates to share.” 

In October, CALÓ News published a story that revealed MTC’s controversial track record — per numerous government oversight reports — including staffing shortfalls, medical neglect and poor facility conditions at five Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers across the U.S. that the company manages.

Records obtained by ACLU of Arizona via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that MTC intends to open an ICE detention center in the former prison and emails obtained by Arizona Luminaria show there has been some communication between town officials and MTC representatives, including questions about permitting and requirements to open an immigration detention center in the town.

Stephanie Casanova is an independent, bilingual journalist from Tucson, Arizona, covering community stories for over 10 years. She is passionate about narrative, in-depth storytelling that is inclusive and reflects the diversity of the communities she covers.