HERMANTOWN — The Duluth Federal Prison Camp will remain open.

The Trump administration reversed a December decision by the Biden administration that would have “deactivated,” or closed, the Hermantown facility within nine months, according to separate news releases Tuesday morning by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., and U.S Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, both Democrats from Minnesota. The three had urged both the Biden and Trump administrations to reconsider the closure and celebrated Tuesday’s decision.

As did the 80 or so remaining employees at the facility, said Tonya Gajeski, president of American Federation of Government Employees Union Local 3935, which represents the facility’s staff. She said employees found out around 9 a.m. Tuesday, and were feeling “generally relieved and happy.”

“We, the staff here, have kind of been in limbo for the last eight or nine months,” said Gajeski, who works as a reentry affairs coordinator at the prison camp. “So it’s a huge relief to just kind of put that to bed and know that we have jobs in Duluth still, and I don’t see any of that changing in the foreseeable future. So we are happy.”

Closure of the facility would have meant transferring all its inmates to other prisons and offering its employees the opportunity to relocate to other jobs within the system.

Gajeski said the wind down had already started, with some inmates transferred to other facilities and others released when their sentences were up. Additionally, the prison camp was not taking in new inmates.

In late December, the News Tribune reported 736 inmates at the camp, but as of Tuesday, the Bureau of Prisons’ website lists a prisoner population of just 260.

The number of employees has also decreased since the announcement of the closure.

There were 89 employees at the facility in December, but Gajeski said that number has fallen to approximately 80, as some employees have transferred to another facility and others have left altogether.

Minimum security

The minimum-security all-male facility is one of just seven of its kind remaining in the U.S.

At the camp, inmates can earn the equivalent of a high school degree; receive training in carpentry, welding and auto body repair; learn how to conduct an effective job search; and resolve addiction issues that could otherwise sabotage their success.

Stauber said the announcement meant that the “facility will remain open and operational for years to come.”

“I am overjoyed by the news that the Federal Prison Camp in Duluth will remain open, and that the 90 federal employees who currently work there will remain employed,” Stauber said.

The announcement follows a visit last week by William Marshall, the new director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which Stauber said he helped arrange.

“This is good news for Duluth,” Klobuchar said in a statement Tuesday. “I spoke with the Director of the Bureau of Prisons ahead of his visit to Duluth last week and urged him to reconsider the decision to deactivate the facility. I emphasized the harmful impact its closure would have on the employees who work there, as well as their families, and the regional economy. I am glad the (Bureau of Prisons) heard the concerns of people on the ground and reversed course.”

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In a statement Tuesday, Smith called the decision “a major victory for the workers, families, and community that have fought to keep these good-paying, union jobs in the region.”

“These employees are essential to the local economy and have deep roots in Duluth,” Smith said. “They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and shouldn’t have been forced to choose between their careers and their community.”

In the December closure announcement, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said the camp suffered from “an aging and dilapidated infrastructure, including several condemned buildings that have contaminants such as asbestos and lead paint.”

The federal prison camp opened in 1983, making use of structures left empty shortly after the local U.S. Air Force Base was decommissioned.

“There are definitely repairs that could be done, but nothing is crumbling and falling over,” Gajeski said.