Six Federal Prisons Are Closing. La Tuna Could Become a Migrant Detention Center.

On July 1 the Bureau of Prisons said it would permanently close six facilities, blaming extreme understaffing and what it calls decades of deferred maintenance. About 5,416 people in custody and 500 staff are directly affected.

The six are Beaumont FCI Low, Big Spring FCI and its satellite camp, and La Tuna FCI and its satellite camp, all in Texas; Lexington FMC and its satellite camp in Kentucky; Petersburg FCI Low in Virginia; and Taft FCI in California, which was already emptied but still kept a small staff. A non-operational building on the La Tuna complex closes too.

The Bureau puts its deferred maintenance backlog above $4 billion. It took $5 billion in 2025 meant for staffing and infrastructure, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act added more for the same purpose. The agency says none of it is enough.

The cost lands on people, not budgets. The First Step Act says prisoners should be housed within 500 miles of home, but only to the extent practicable. Closing three Texas facilities, plus ones in Kentucky, Virginia, and California, pushes thousands of people further from the families and lawyers who visit them. No timeline has been announced. Staff were told they would get 60 days of notice, down from the nine months their old union contract required.

That contract is gone. In September 2025 the Bureau canceled its collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees. The union was not told about the closures and has sued. Its president, Everett Kelley, asked Congress on July 2 to stop the closures and spend the money already appropriated on fixing the buildings instead. He called it a plan to dismantle the federal prison system.

The staffing numbers explain why this is happening. The Bureau has been shedding officers for years. More than 1,400 staff left in 2025, many of them for jobs at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In Anthony, Texas, La Tuna is the closure people are watching closest. The town grew up around the prison. Rep. Veronica Escobar, whose district includes it, said she was not notified and believes the closures are a step toward privatizing the system. She has asked the Justice Department to repair La Tuna instead, to save hundreds of jobs, and visited the facility in August. A protest was held outside it.

There is now a new worry. The El Paso Times reported in mid-August that people in the area fear La Tuna could be turned into a migrant detention center. That would swap one locked population for another and would not bring back the jobs the town is losing. The Bureau has not said what the buildings will become.