When Congress passed the budget bill on July 1, it made U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the largest federal law enforcement agency, more than tripling its annual budget. The bill includes an unprecedented $45 billion for ICE to build new immigration detention centers that will house both adults and children. As of Sept. 7, there were 58,766 people in ICE detention, compared with the 37,395 being held at the same time last year. The new funds could potentially lead to a doubling of detention capacity. In August, the Washington Post reported on internal documents indicating that ICE should have the capacity to hold more than 107,000 people by January. In addition to funding for detention, Congress provided an additional $30 billion for arrests and deportation. Part of those funds are earmarked for hiring and training additional ICE agents and transporting detainees between detention centers and ultimately out of the country.
For years private prison companies have been an important partner for ICE as the government carries out its immigration agenda. ICE contracts with corporations to build and run detention facilities and to transport undocumented individuals who are in custody. The two biggest private prison companies in the United States are CoreCivic and GEO Group. The companies are poised to expand their roles – as well as their profits – thanks to the new influx of funding.
As I noted last November, as we stood on the precipice of an explosion of mass detention, it is critical to acknowledge that if these corporations didn’t exist it would be difficult for the federal government to execute its plans. And when this giant infusion of funding for ICE ramps up the U.S. government’s capacity to detain, transport, and deport people, it will be difficult to dismantle even if future administrations seek to wind down this agenda. Potentially adding 10,000 new ICE detention officers, creating 50,000 or more detention beds, and adding fleets of vehicles such as buses and vans to the nation’s detention and removal operations will create an infrastructure that is unparalleled in this country. The funding creates vested interests for corporations that provide detention, transport, healthcare, and security services and some local communities that benefit from the associated jobs and tax dollars, making it even harder to dismantle.
Soaring Industry Profits
This month, the two largest private prison corporations reported significant profits during their second quarter earnings calls.
CoreCivic reported total revenue of $538.2 million during the company’s second quarter, an almost 10 percent increase from the same time period in 2024. GEO Group, ICE’s largest contractor, reported second-quarter revenue of $636.2 million, a 5 percent increase over the same time period last year.
CoreCivic CEO and Director Damon Hininger told investors during the Aug. 7 earnings call that the new budget bill is a “a pivotal moment for funding related to our industry.” Similarly, GEO Group Founder and Executive Chairman of the Board George Zoley told investors on their Aug. 6 call: “Given the intrinsic value of our assets and the unprecedented growth opportunities we anticipate will materialize over the balance of this year and next year, we believe that our current equity valuation offers an attractive opportunity for investors.”
Rising to Meet Demand
CoreCivic and GEO Group have both taken steps this year to increase detention capacity. The companies have signed contracts with the federal government to add additional beds to current detention facilities, in addition to signing new contracts with the federal government to reopen idle facilities. For example, since January, GEO Group has reactivated four facilities with a total of 6,600 beds for ICE. The company expects these four facilities alone to produce more than $240 million a year in revenue.
CoreCivic signed an agreement with ICE this year to re-open the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, a 2,400-bed detention center constructed to house families. The facility was closed in 2024 after President Joe Biden phased out family detention in 2021. At the family detention center, fathers are usually separated from mothers and children. The company also reactivated the California City Immigration Processing Center to house ICE detainees. The facility has 2,560 detention beds. And in March, CoreCivic entered a preliminary contract with ICE to re-open a more than 1,000-bed facility in Leavenworth, Kansas, called the Midwest Regional Reception Center. The building is the site of a former federal prison.
CoreCivic reports that it has informed ICE that it has approximately 30,000 more beds that it can make available. Some of those beds – 13,400 – are across nine empty corrections and detention facilities. The rest of the capacity comes from adding more beds in facilities currently operating.
GEO Group is also advertising that it has almost 6,000 idle beds (meaning, beds across multiple facilities that are not currently in use by any state or federal agency) for ICE or the U.S. Marshals Service to use if needed. The company also has an additional 5,000 beds that can be created on a temporary or permanent basis at existing facilities.
GEO Group has also become a pivotal partner for the administration in transporting and ultimately removing people from the United States. GEO Group’s transportation subsidiary, GTI, is the largest provider of ground and air transportation for ICE. Geo Group expects that more removal flights could produce an additional $40 million to $50 million in annual revenue for GTI.
Local Pushback
Despite the expansion, some jurisdictions have pushed back on detention facilities opening in their cities and towns. For example, after a lawsuit filed by the city of Leavenworth, a Kansas court temporarily blocked CoreCivic from housing immigrant detainees at the Midwest Regional Reception Center because the company didn’t obtain a special use permit to open the facility. Many local residents have also voiced their opposition. Some residents oppose it in protest of the administration’s immigration agenda. Others remember chronic understaffing and dangerous conditions at the former CoreCivic facility on that site, as detailed in a report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General.
That local pushback comes despite the fact that the facility would be lucrative for Leavenworth, as CoreCivic has promised the city $1 million once the facility opens and additional annual payments of $250,000. The company also promised $150,000 to the police department.
Democratic leaders in New Jersey also publicly pushed back against GEO Group’s opening of Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed detention facility that will be the largest immigration detention facility on the East Coast. Officials in Newark filed a lawsuit to try to stop the detention center from opening its doors, alleging that GEO Group was renovating the building without proper city permits. However, a July ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (concerning a different facility in the state) held that New Jersey cannot block private prison firms from entering into contracts with the U.S. government.
A Struggle to Provide Oversight
As it’s partnering with private companies to increase the nation’s immigration detention capacity, the Trump administration has also attempted to reduce oversight of detention facilities. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) effectively eliminated the Office of the Immigration Ombudsman and the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, both of which performed critical oversight of immigration detention.
This summer, following the elimination of those oversight bodies, ICE denied numerous members of Congress access to detention facilities and field offices as they attempted to check on conditions for detainees — even though federal law provides members of Congress the legal right to do so. And just last week, 11 Democratic elected officials were arrested in Manhattan after they demanded access to cells in a federal building where ICE houses migrants. And members of Congress are pushing back. On July 30, a dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives sued the Trump administration, seeking to ensure they are granted access to detention facilities, even without prior notice.
Congress has also previously considered ways to expand oversight and transparency of detention facilities, specifically of prisons and detention centers operated by private corporations. This legislation, the Private Prison Information Act, would increase the information private prison companies have to make public. It did not advance last year.
State oversight of ICE detention is limited, as oversight of these facilities has traditionally rested with DHS and the Government Accountability Office. But California offers a model for states to follow as federal oversight wanes. In 2017, California’s legislature enacted Assembly Bill 103. The law requires the state of California’s Department of Justice to review and report on conditions of confinement at immigration detention facilities through July 1, 2027. The state released a report this April (its fourth since the law was enacted) after visiting six privately-operated ICE immigration detention facilities in California. The report found that the facilities need significant improvements to adequately address the mental health needs of detainees. The facilities were deficient in implementing suicide prevention programs, and staff were found to use disproportionate force against individuals with mental health diagnoses. The facilities also failed to comply with their obligations to ensure that mental health conditions did not stop detainees from participating in their immigration legal proceedings.
Ethical Investment and the Private Prison Sector
Despite soaring profits and high returns for shareholders, some investors have walked away from these companies for ethical reasons. As I wrote about in my book, “Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” Columbia University became the first private college in the nation in 2015 to divest from private prisons. That same year, the University of California became the first public education system to divest its holdings in the industry when it announced it would sell its $25 million stake in GEO Group, CoreCivic, and G4S (a private security company that operates some private prisons across the globe). Dozens of other divestment campaigns steadily popped up across the country at a broad swath of universities and colleges. In 2019, eight major banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, announced they would no longer provide financing to private operators of prisons and detention centers. And online tools now exist that help investors find information about which funds contain these stocks.
When the banks made that move in 2019, it was amid widespread protests of Trump immigration policies, particularly those focused on separating children from their families. Now, after widespread criticism from Republicans including President Donald Trump, some corporations have backtracked on many of their socially oriented policies, positions, and commitments that were politically popular just five years ago. And at least two banks, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, have started to work with the private prison sector again.
The outcome of recent litigation may eat into profits of companies that manage ICE detention centers. The full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reconsider a three-judge panel’s January ruling that held that the state minimum wage laws apply equally to all private employers in the state, regardless of their contractual arrangement with the federal government. GEO Group is now required to pay $23 million to Washington State and immigrant detainees who were paid $1 a day (rather than minimum wage) to participate in the company’s Voluntary Work Program, which included jobs such as kitchen and janitorial work, building repairs, waste management, and laundry. This decision could have far-reaching impacts for other corporations that manage detention centers for ICE, potentially increasing the government’s cost to contract with these companies.
With new, unparalleled funding, corporations that support the growth of detention infrastructure will continue to see soaring profits. And the danger – and reality – is that because these corporations exist, it allows for a rapid expansion of the detention and removal infrastructure in the United States. This has already started to create a web of corporate and community incentives that could be difficult to unwind.
