ICE detention and surveillance are a bonanza for private companies getting hundreds of millions revenue
Business is booming for the private prison companies that operate much of President Donald Trump’s immigrant detention apparatus.
Private prison giant Geo Group announced this week that it has seen its largest amount of new business ever in 2025. The company’s executives expect it to translate into $3 billion in revenue next year. Geo Group’s detention occupancy level — 26,000 people — is at an all-time high, according to its latest quarterly report.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” company founder George Zoley said on an earnings call Thursday. “Our existing facilities are on full throttle.”
Executives at CoreCivic, another private prison company, and the tech company Palantir also released numbers this week boasting of hundreds of millions in revenue from July to September, bolstered by their contracts to build up Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention infrastructure and surveillance system.
While the companies’ profits grow, so do concerns for detainees’ safety and the erosion of privacy rights.
CoreCivic’s CEO said Thursday that the company expects a record-breaking $2.5 billion in revenue next year.
Business with ICE contributed to $682 million in revenue for Geo Group in the third quarter of the fiscal year and $580 million in revenue for CoreCivic in the same period. Those hundreds of millions translate to a 13% increase for Geo Group and 18% for CoreCivic from the third quarter of last year to this year. [Continue reading…]