Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar, was built in 1989 at a cost of nearly $17 million, was commissioned on July 19, 1989, and accepted its first prisoners on October 31, 1989. In March 1996, the
United States Department of Justice entered into an agreement with the U.S. Navy and a private jail firm and began to use a section of the brig for illegal immigrants who had been deported for criminal convictions, mostly drug crimes, and had been re-arrested for re-entering the United States. The U.S. military allocated cell space to the
U.S. Marshals Service so that agency could operate a civilian facility, the Miramar Federal Detention Facility, within the brig. The
U.S. Department of Justice had begun to target illegal immigrants who had criminal records. As a result, jails in the San Diego area became overcrowded.
Metropolitan Correctional Center, San Diego, had been overcrowded for a long period of time leading up to 1996. In 2010, the facility was expanded to accommodate an additional 200 prisoners before February 2011. The expansion, designed by Clark Construction and KMD Architects, included 120 cells for men and 80 cells for women. The women's housing unit was designed differently from the men's unit. The expansion also included a prisoner processing center, a kitchen, a mess hall and multipurpose room, a visitor center, an entrance lobby, classrooms, and conference rooms. A separate vocational building was established. The total expansion had a cost of $28 million. On February 4, 2011, a celebration for the expansion was held with a
ribbon-cutting ceremony. ==Notable inmates==