Seven months after federal officials announced that a minimum-security prison camp in Duluth would be shuttered for, among other reasons, its “aging and dilapidated infrastructure,” the Bureau of Prisons now says it has reversed course and will keep the facility open.
In December 2024, during the final weeks of the Biden administration, the agency’s former director Colette Peters announced a strategic realignment of the agency, which included the “deactivation” of the Duluth Federal Prison Camp and more than a half dozen other facilities around the country.
But following a site visit last week, new Bureau of Prisons Director William Marshall, III, a Trump appointee, “has determined that the facility will not be deactivated,” said agency spokesperson Donald Murphy.
About 90 employees work at the facility in Hermantown, near the Duluth International Airport.
“We're just, I think, all very relieved.” said Tonya Gajeski, union president at the federal prison camp in Duluth. Gajeski said the prison warden informed workers of the news at a meeting Tuesday morning.
“It's been a long few months here,” Gajeski admitted, “just kind of living in limbo and wondering if we're staying here or going somewhere else.”
When the Bureau of Prisons announced the closure in December, it said the agency was not downsizing, and would offer employees positions at the federal prison in Sandstone, about 70 miles away.”
But Gajeski, who works as the Reentry Affairs Coordinator at the prison camp, said there was never enough work at the Sandstone facility for all the Duluth employees.
“It would have made no sense for me to go down to Sandstone, and as a taxpayer, kind of double up, so I would be doing like half as much work for the same amount of pay.”
Gajeski also said the claims of dilapidated buildings were overblown at the facility, which was built in the 1950s.
Inmates at the minimum-security facility have fewer than 10 years remaining on their sentences. They were either sentenced there, or have worked their way down from medium or low-level security facilities, Gajeski said. The focus is on preparing them to re-enter society.
There were more than 700 inmates at the facility when its deactivation was announced last November. Many have since been transferred to other facilities or have been released.
Gajeski said there are only about 275 inmates currently there, although she assumes that number will grow now that the facility’s future has been secured.
Northeast Minnesota Republican Rep. Pete Stauber, who lives in Hermantown where the prison camp is located, accompanied the prisons bureau director on his site visit last week, where he “was able to see firsthand the prison’s top-notch programming, dedicated employees, and the value it brings to our community,” Stauber said.
“I join FPC Duluth’s employees and their families in thanking Director Marshall and the Trump administration for their attention to this issue and for making the right decision,” he said.
Democratic U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith also advocated for the camp to remain open. Klobuchar said she spoke to Marshall last week and urged him to reconsider the deactivation.
“I emphasized the harmful impact its closure would have on the employees who work there, as well as their families, and the regional economy,” Klobuchar said. “I am glad the BOP heard the concerns of people on the ground and reversed course.”