Politics, Profits, and the Privatization of Immigration Enforcement”
Nearly 90% of all ICE Detention facilities are owned by two large defense contractors: GEO Group and CivicCorp. The net profits of these two corporate giants are nearly $300 Million in 2025. In 2024, they spent a combined total of 4.5 million in campaign contributions to Trump and the Republicans. The Program of Government Oversight reported that, in 2024 alone, ICE was obligated to GEO Group to the tune of $747 Million in contracts. And that number is growing!
Most food in these Detention centers (along with prisons and jails) is provided by Aramark, another Transnational Corporations valued at $16 Billion. Of course, food is substandard at best. And Aramark also has the contract for the labor of detainees, which are paid well below the minimum wage, in fact documented to be as low as $1/day for undocumented detainees, who then use that money for phone calls and commissary which only profit Aramark, GEO Group, and CivicCorp.
The issue of immigration is thus not only political and social, not just triggered by economics (namely the so-called economic drain of immigrants), but actually an economic incentive in and of itself for some. And it is self-perpetuating.
If big government wants to detain immigrants, then it should build and run its own facilities, subject to government oversight. It is not as if they are doing the taxpayer a favor by outsourcing. $1 Billion in contracts this year with taxpayer money.
Follow the money! Demand Accountability! End the for-profit Prison-DHS-Industrial System!
Truth2Power!