The nation’s largest non-public jail corporations are reporting important income amid an aggressive push by the Trump administration to extend immigration arrests and detentions.
Throughout earnings calls final week, executives with the companies Geo Group and CoreCivic introduced a rise in income from new and present contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and mentioned their plans to expand their businesses to satisfy the administration’s calls for.
“Our enterprise is completely aligned with the calls for of this second,” mentioned CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger. “We’re in an unprecedented surroundings with speedy will increase in federal detention populations nationwide and a seamless want for options.”
CoreCivic reported a complete income of $538.2 million throughout their second quarter, a 9.8% enhance from the identical quarter in 2024.
Through the name, Hininger instructed buyers the corporate is evaluating extra alternatives for enlargement and mentioned that CoreCivic amenities are “essentially the most humane, most effective logistically, have the best audit compliance scores of their system, and are safer [and] weatherproof.”
Hininger mentioned that whereas ICE has just lately been utilizing “soft-sided options” just like the tent amenities at Guantanamo Bay and at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” detention heart, he believes the company “doesn’t see soft-sided amenities as long-term options.”
“Within the days for the reason that election, the message has been fairly darn clear from the administration, DHS management, and ICE management that detention goes to be the precedence,” Hininger mentioned, including that the corporate has been “working across the clock” to open up mattress area and new detention amenities.
The Adelanto Detention Facility on Nov. 15, 2013 in Adelanto, Calif.
John Moore/Getty Pictures, FILE
Geo Group, ICE’s largest contractor, reported complete second-quarter income of $636.2 million, a 5% enhance from the second quarter of 2024.
Throughout their earnings name final week, Geo Group Chairman George Zoley mentioned the utilization of their present ICE contracts elevated from 15,000 beds to twenty,000 beds, which Zoley mentioned is the best stage of ICE utilization within the firm’s historical past.
“All of those efforts are aimed toward putting our firm in the most effective aggressive place doable to pursue what we proceed to imagine are unprecedented progress alternatives as a long-standing assist companies supplier for ICE,” mentioned Zoley.
“We imagine we’re uniquely positioned to help the company to satisfy its goals,” Zoley mentioned.
The Geo Group CEO instructed buyers that “given the dimensions” of the undocumented immigrant inhabitants within the U.S., the corporate’s view is that along with elevated detention capability, the “enforcement of federal immigration legal guidelines” might result in a rise in GPS monitoring for people.
The corporate, which has contracted with ICE for over 20 years to handle the company’s digital monitoring program, presently tracks roughly 183,000 people, Zoley mentioned. The monitoring program is run by BI Inc., a subsidiary of Geo Group.
“As soon as detention capability is maximized by the tip of the 12 months, we speculate that the main focus will probably shift to rising using GPS monitoring,” Zoley mentioned. “We imagine we have taken the required assets to considerably and rapidly reply to the eventual enlargement of [the] Intensive Supervision and Look Program (ISAP).”
ICE has for years relied on non-public corporations to deal with detained migrants, making it a multimillion-dollar enterprise.
As ABC Information has beforehand reported, Geo Group and CoreCivic — each of whose management have long supported Trump — noticed their inventory costs instantly spike after Trump’s victory within the November election.
