'Most exciting': Private prison owners celebrate massive immigration windfall

The most valuable private prison companies are GEO Group and CoreCivic, at $4 billion and $2.2 billion, respectively. In a 2023 report, GEO Group noted Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts accounted for 43 percent of its revenue; for CoreCivic that number was 30 percent. The day after Donald Trump was reelected, the companies’ stock prices soared: GEO Group’s by about 41 percent and CoreCivic’s by nearly 29 percent.

“This is, to us, an unprecedented opportunity,” George Zoley, executive chairman of the GEO Group, said during an earnings call shortly after the election. During a CoreCivic earnings call, CEO Damon Hininger said: “This is truly one of the most exciting periods in my career with the company.”

In December, GEO Group announced that the company would expand its ICE services capabilities by investing $70 million in capital expenditures. Zoley said during the earnings call that the company is looking to potentially double its services. ICE could help fill up to 18,000 empty GEO beds, which could generate as much as $400 million.

Both companies are part of a multibillion-dollar industry that could grow significantly while Trump is in office. Accordingly, the corporations and their employees have invested millions to influence decision-making that could increase their bottom lines.

New contracts

• ICE recently posted calls for contract proposals worth up to $45 billion for multiple detention facilities “in compliance with the President’s Declaration of a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States and related Executive Orders.” A 250-page document obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that both CoreCivic and GEO Group submitted proposals for facilities that are not currently operated by ICE. These included facilities in California, the Midwest and the Southwest. In the previous fiscal year the Department of Homeland Security allocated $3.4 billion to ICE’s custody operations.
• GEO Group announced a 15-year contract with ICE for 1,000 beds at its Delaney Hall Facility in Newark, New Jersey. The company said the contract is expected to add $60 million to its annual revenue in the first year. GEO announced another contract with ICE for a 1,800 bed facility in Baldwin, Michigan. The contract is expected to generate $70 million in annual revenue. The company altered its contract agreement for the 1,328-bed Karnes ICE Processing Center in Karnes City, Texas, to host “mixed populations” instead of solely single males. That contract is expected to generate $79 million in the first year, including $23 million in incremental revenue.
• CoreCivic signed a five-year contract to reopen a 2,400-bed family detention center in Dilley, Texas. Annual revenue once fully operational is expected to be $180 million. The company announced on Feb. 27 that it would increase capacity for up to 784 ICE detainees at its 2,016-bed Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, its 1,072-bed Nevada Southern Detention Center and its 1,600-bed Cimarron Correctional Facility in Oklahoma. In addition, CoreCivic has modified a contract so that ICE may use up to 252 beds at its 2,672-bed Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi.

Follow the money

• GEO Group and CoreCivic spent $1.38 million and $1.77 million, respectively, on lobbying the federal government in 2024. Much of their focus was the appropriations bill funding the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the budget for ICE.
• Both GEO Group and CoreCivic made $500,000 donations to the 2025 inaugural committee, double what they gave to Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee.
• During the 2024 election cycle, GEO Group employees and its political action committees contributed a total of $3.7 million to candidates, outside spending groups and other political committees. The majority went to Republicans and conservative groups: The company contributed $1 million to Trump’s Make America Great Again super PAC, $775,000 to the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund and $500,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund. GEO Acquisition II, Inc, a subsidiary, contributed $1 million to Make America Great Again. GEO’s PAC became the first to max out donations to Trump’s presidential campaign in February 2024, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a nonprofit government watchdog.
• Two GEO Group executives, founder George Zoley and CEO Brian Evans, each made a $11,600 contribution to Trump’s Save America fundraising committee.
• In August 2024, Zoley spent over $3 million to buy 250,000 shares of his company at an average price of $12.28; their value has more than doubled as of April 22. The increase in GEO’s stock price is the largest since 2016. It would generate about $4 million profit for Zoley if he sold the stock.
• CoreCivic PACs and employees donated $784,974 in the 2024 election cycle, of which $660,170 went to Republican candidates and committees. Hininger contributed $300,000 to a joint fundraising committee benefitting the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
• Both GEO Group and CoreCivic have deep ties with the government: Attorney General Pam Bondi lobbied for GEO Group while she worked at Ballad Partners, for which she was paid $390,000. The majority of GEO Group’s lobbyists in 2024 were “revolvers”: 10 out of 13 previously held government positions. For CoreCivic, six out of 10 lobbyists in 2024 previously held government positions.
• The board of directors of GEO Group has extensive links with ICE: Lindsay Koren served as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice from 2004 to 2007 and as an attorney advisor to the chief immigration judge. Julie Wood was the head of ICE from January 2006 until November 2008. She has served on GEO’s board since 2018. Matthew Albence served in a variety of positions at ICE before joining GEO Group in 2022. A few days before the 2024 presidential elections, the executive associate director at ICE, Daniel Bible, left to become executive vice president at GEO Group — following the same pattern as Daniel Ragsdale, who was the chief operating office for ICE and joined GEO in 2017 as EVP.
• In 2024, CoreCivic paid over $4.4 million for dozens of mistreatment complaints, including at least 22 prisoner deaths at its Tennessee prisons and jails.

Why does it matter?

• In August 2016, the Obama administration started phasing out the use of some for-profit prisons. But during the first Trump administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions revoked the decision and resumed contracting with for-profit firms. A few months later, GEO Group was awarded a contract with ICE to build a new detention facility, which was expected to generate $44 million. During President Joe Biden’s first days in the White House, he issued an executive order directing the attorney general to not renew DOJ contracts with privately operated detention facilities. Trump reversed Biden’s order during his first day in office in 2025.
• During the presidential campaign, Trump suggested his administration would deport “millions” of immigrants. According to recent reporting by The Washington Post, the White House is now aiming to deport 1 million people this year.
• The Department of Homeland Security told Newsweek in early April that 100,000 people had been deported since Inauguration Day, a significant increase in the pace of deportations.
• NBC News is tracking data provided by ICE as well as U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The latest update shows more than 47,000 migrants are being held in detention facilities.
• In 2022, the Office of Homeland Security Statistics estimated that there were 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States. Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, said the department needs more money in order to be able to realize the deportations. According to The American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy group, deporting 1 million people in one year would cost $88 billion.
• At the Border Security Expo in early April, Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons said he would like ICE to operate more like a business: “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings,” he said. He added that “the badge and guns” should do “the badge-and-gun stuff, everything else, let’s contract out.” The event drew hundreds of military and tech companies lining up to get new government contracts with ICE for the border.

This article is part of a series investigating companies and organizations benefiting from deportations.