The federal Bureau of Prisons plans to permanently close six facilities, citing extreme understaffing and “decades of deferred maintenance.” The move will affect hundreds of BOP staff and thousands of people in custody, and follows a series of changes that have severely destabilized the agency since President Donald Trump began his second term.
Three of the facilities set to close are in Texas: Beaumont FCI Low, Big Spring FCI and its adjacent satellite camp, and La Tuna FCI and its adjacent satellite camp. The other facilities are Lexington FMC and its satellite camp in Kentucky, and Petersburg FCI Low in Virginia. Taft FCI in California, which had already been emptied but still retained minimal staff operations, will also close, as will a non-operational facility at the La Tuna complex.
Approximately 5,416 people in custody and 500 BOP staff will be directly affected. The First Step Act requires that federal prisoners be housed at facilities within 500 miles of their primary residence, but only “to the extent practicable.”
In 2025, the BOP received $5 billion to address staffing and infrastructure specifically.
“BOP is currently confronting a deferred maintenance backlog exceeding $4 billion,” the agency stated in a July 1 announcement. “While funding provided through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will help address some of these needs, it is not sufficient to fully resolve the operational and infrastructure challenges that have accumulated over decades.”
At publication there were 138,941 people housed in BOP facilities across the country, and another 14,851 people in BOP custody being housed in local facilities.
BOP currently operates approximately 118 facilities
Immediately upon taking office in January 2025, Trump reversed the Biden-era order phasing out federal contracts with private detention facilities. Simultaneously, Collete Peters was forced out as BOP director, leaving the agency with either acting directors or no one in charge until Director William Marshall III was appointed in April 2025.
By that time, retention-based incentives for BOP staff had been cut in half. Already in the midst of an understaffing crisis, over the course of 2025 agency saw more than 1,400 corrections officers and other staff leave their positions. Many went to work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In September 2025, the BOP canceled its collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees, which was set to last until May 2029. In a statement announcing the termination, effective immediately, Marshall told BOP staff that “CPL-33 didn’t give you your protections, the law did,” and that the “whole purpose of ending this contract is to make your lives better.” The AFGE Council of Prisons Locals 33 has since filed a lawsuit challenging the contract termination. The union was not notified of the plan to close six BOP facilities.
No timeline was announced for the closures. A union representative told the New York Times that BOP employees affected by the layoffs would be getting 60 days’ notice. Previously, the contract had guaranteed a notice period of nine months.
On July 2, AFGE National President Everett Kelley urged Congress to suspend the closures.
“The Bureau cites staffing shortages and deteriorating infrastructure as the reasons for these closures,” Kelley wrote in an open letter. “Yet Congress has already provided approximately $3 billion for personnel and $2 billion for infrastructure through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to address those exact challenges. Those investments should be used to strengthen the federal prison system, not dismantle it. Closing these facilities will make communities less safe, place greater strain on already overworked correctional staff, reduce the Bureau’s operational capacity, and eliminate federal jobs that support families and local economies.”
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D), who represents Texas’ 16th Congressional District, told El Paso Matters that she had not been notified of the closures and believed they represent the latest step in a plan to privatize the federal prison system.
In late May, the BOP began seeking commissary vendors that could serve facilities across the entire system—implying a shift toward privatization, as only a small number of for-profit contractors would be able to serve facilities spread across the country. Current BOP policy requires each facility to handle its commissary operations independently, which in many cases has been an economic boost for local businesses.
Top image of Taft FCI in 2023 via Department of Justice. Inset graphic via Bureau of Prisons.