Role of Major For-Profit Prison Corporations in Mass Incarceration of Immigrants and Refugees
Private for-profit prison corporations are heavily involved in the massive increase the unjust and illegal detention of immigrants and refugees being carried out by the Trump administration. Tens of billions of dollars have been granted by Congress, $45 billion U.S. in 2025 and another $70 billion U.S. in June 2026.
These private for-profit corporations play a key role in realizing the U.S. government's aims to rapidly achieve a total capacity of 100,000 for those detained by ICE. Rather than building prisons, the expansion is being done by the conversion of warehouses into concentration camps.
According to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, for-profit detention camps hold the overwhelming majority of people, mainly workers, detained by ICE. These facilities are also where the majority of the fatalities in federal immigrant detention have occurred since January 2025, with a total of 52 deaths in that time.
GEO Group
GEO Group is the largest private for-profit operators of prisons and concentration camps in the U.S. It owns or operates 95 facilities across the country. Nineteen of these facilities are operated for Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE). It was founded in 1984 as a division of the security firm Wackenhut Corporation by George Zoley, who is the current CEO.
GEO Group reported $2.6 billion in total revenue in 2025, up six per cent from $2.43 billion in 2024. Based in Boca Raton, Florida, its U.S. operations are primarily privatized prisons and detention camps for federal and state authorities. It also has similar operations in Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
Regarding the conversion of warehouses into ICE concentration camps, Zoley told investors in a February earnings call, "We've only had one experience in renovating a warehouse, and that occurred maybe 30 years ago. So it's more complicated than you may think." He added, "As a 40-year partner to ICE, we expect to be a part of this solution." Notably, the largest institutional investor in GEO Group is BlackRock, which is heavily involved in national banks and government infrastructure projects, including in Canada.
That same month, GEO Group announced it had signed a U.S.$1 billion, 15-year contract with the federal government to reopen Delaney Hall in Newark, NJ, as a concentration camp able to hold 1,000 people. After reopening, Delaney Hall has refused access to various government officials, including Governor Mikie Sherrill, to investigate abuse taking place there. The people detained and surrounding community have waged persistent struggles to close the camp.
In 2021, ICE paid GEO Group more than U.S.$15 million to carry out deportations to Haiti.
GEO Group also runs the Reeves County
Detention Complex in Texas, which saw people inside rebel in 2008 and 2009 over poor
conditions. The Texas complex, still in operation today, houses more
than 3,700 prisoners. GEO Group boasts it is "the largest
detention/correctional facility under private management in the world."
Even in 2008/2009, the vast majority of those detained were immigrants
serving short sentences prior to deportation for non-criminal offences,
such as entering the U.S. outside a port of entry. Clearly, the current
abuse of people at Delaney Hall is not something new for GEO Group.
From 2006 to 2012, it was contracted by ICE to run the Migrant Operations Center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Over the past 25 years, GEO Group has regularly faced lawsuits and investigations for deaths and mistreatment at its facilities.
CoreCivic
CoreCivic is the second largest for-profit operator of private prisons in the U.S., with operations on a similar scale to GEO Group. Based in Brentwood, TN, it runs 70 state and federal facilities. Of these, at least ten are ICE detention facilities. In 2025, it reported U.S.$2.2 billion in total revenue, up 13 per cent from $1.96 billion in 2024. Like GEO Group, it also expects to reap a windfall from the billions of federal dollars allocated to increase the detention of immigrants. It was founded in 1983 as Corrections Corporation of America. In 1984, CoreCivic became the first U.S. company to build and operate a private prison – a Houston motel that was hastily remodelled to incarcerate immigrants.
BlackRock is also the top institutional investor for Core Civic. However, many pension funds for public employees unions were also investors, leading to campaigns for these funds to divest from CoreCivic and GEO Group.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC, i.e., the Quakers) in its 2023 investigation into CoreCivic, noted that 52 per cent of the company's annual revenue was generated from federal prison and immigration authorities, including primarily ICE, the U.S. Marshals Services (USMS), and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Of this amount, 30 per cent came from ICE. The rest of the company's revenue derived mostly from contracts with state and local government agencies.
In 2025, the Trump administration awarded CoreCivic a $100 million contract to reopen Oklahoma's 2,160-bed Diamondback Correctional Facility that had been closed since 2010. Also that year, CoreCivic announced it would reopen South Texas Family Residential Center, under ICE contract, with the capacity to detain up to 2,400 people.
In 2016, the Obama administration provided CoreCivic a U.S.$1 billion no-bid contract to detain asylum seekers from Central America.
In 2012, the company contacted prison officials in 48 states offering, in exchange for a 20-year management contract, a guaranteed occupancy rate of 90 per cent. This obviously predisposes the system to all manner of abuse and increased incarceration for offences that do not warrant it. Furthermore, under such contracts, state and federal agencies (such as ICE) are legally obligated to pay for a minimum of 90 per cent of the facility's total bed capacity, even if actual occupancy falls below that threshold.
Over the years, CoreCivic has been investigated for abuse of those in its facilities, corruption and fraud, as well as violations of attorney-client confidentiality, among other wrong-doing. The Quakers point out:
"CoreCivic's prisons have long faced allegations of inhumane living conditions, excessive use of force, prolonged use of solitary confinement, forced prison labour, medical negligence, physical and sexual abuse, spying and voyeurism, overcrowding, understaffing, and civil rights violations."
Quebec-Based GardaWorld
Quebec-Based GardaWorld runs its U.S. operations under the name GardaWorld Federal Services. While its U.S. operations are much smaller than GEO Group and CoreCivic, it is the world's largest private security firm with operations in more than 45 countries and a total revenue of nearly U.S.$5.5 billion.
In March 2026, GardaWorld Federal Services was awarded a U.S.$313.4 million one-year federal contract with the Department of Homeland Security. The contract is to convert a massive industrial building and then operate it as an ICE processing and detention centre in Surprise, Arizona, with a capacity to hold some 1,500 people. With options to extend the contract through to February 2029, its potential total value is as much as U.S.$704 million.
Additionally, the company helped operate the "Alligator Alcatraz" concentration camp in Florida, where various human rights abuses have been documented.
CBC News reports that "The Quebec government, through Investissement Québec, invested $300 million in GardaWorld in 2022 to support the security firm's global expansion. In exchange, the province received preferred shares that earn a yearly profit, which will be paid out whenever GardaWorld decides to buy the shares back."
In 2023, the Quakers submitted a report on GardaWorld to the Denver Mayor's Office and Denver City Council, as part of a campaign to stop the city from contracting with the company to provide sheltering services to newcomers. Their report enumerates GardaWorld's misconduct around the world including at immigration detention facilities in Canada and the U.S.:
"GardaWorld has [...] been implicated in cases of human trafficking, corruption, illegal weapons use, and excessive force. [...]
"GardaWorld has operated or currently operates in several other conflict zones, including Chad, Haiti, Libya, Somalia, Ukraine, and Yemen. The company's operations in these regions have similarly been rife with misconduct. [...]
"In recent years, GardaWorld has expanded its operations within the 'migrant sheltering' and immigrant detention industries. Since 2015, the company has provided detention and transportation services to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which is responsible for arresting, jailing, and deporting migrants in Canada. Under 'Detention Program' contracts with the CBSA, GardaWorld has overseen the detention and transportation of immigrants held at the British Columbia Immigration Holding Centre (BCIHC) in Vancouver and the Laval Immigration Holding Centre (IHC) in Quebec; in immigration 'day cells' located in Vancouver's Library Square; and at several other locations.
"Unsafe conditions at these immigrant detention centres have long been reported by human rights organizations and Canadian news media. [...]
"GardaWorld also operates several controversial 'migrant shelters' in the U.S., including the Fort Bliss military base-turned-shelter in El Paso, Texas. [... T]he company has operated at the shelter since it opened in March 2021 as an Office of Refugee Resettlement Emergency Intake Site (EIS) for jailing up to 10,000 unaccompanied children.
"In September 2022, the Health and Human Services Office (HHS) Inspecter General released a 58-page report detailing inhumane conditions, deficient case management, and 'the deteriorating mental health of unaccompanied minors housed at the Fort Bliss tent camp.' [...]"
(With files from Wikipedia, AFSC, CBC, Time, Investing.com.)
This article was published in
Volume 56 Number 5 - July 4, 2026
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/TML2026/Articles/TS560511.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca