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Trump’s Immigration Policies Are Feeding the Private Prison Industrial Complex
The Trump administration leaves no doubt that it will detain as many undocumented immigrants as it can and send them to for-profit centers.
Sep 03, 2025
When it comes to for-profit, private corporate incarceration of immigrants, making lots of money is like drinking salt water: The more they drink, the thirstier they get. Roman proverbs say that the more money a rich man has, the more driven and addicted he becomes to accumulating even more money. Wealth addiction is at the root of giant private prison corporations’ domination of the US government as communities take a back seat to the need for private profit. Many government leaders from both political parties share the same “profits over people” ideology.
The industry is preparing for explosive growth. On recent earnings calls, CoreCivic executives announced plans to triple the number of beds in their facilities within a few months. That would mean an additional $1.5 billion in revenue for the corporation, more than doubling its annual earnings. The US private incarceration system is a deeply entrenched network of public-private partnerships that make billions from incarceration and detention every year.
Just like large. private health insurance corporations, the US private-profit incarceration system has the inherent tendency to invent new needs, disregard all boundaries, and turn everything into big profit. Limitless greed for money becomes a disease where a person may become oversaturated with food… but no one or private prison corporation ever has enough wealth. Wealth addiction is a greedy compulsion to obtain more and more wealth, and specifically obtain what belongs to others. The effect is to injure others because it is adversarial and harmful to society as a whole.
The private prison industry pushes for harsh immigration policies intended to drive up immigration detention. And private immigration detention centers suffer from many of the same problems as private prisons and jails, but the people held in them have even fewer rights and thus, at times, can suffer even more abuse.
What Is Private Immigration Detention?
Emerging from the Reagan administration’s advocacy of privatization of public services, immigration detention is now a booming business for private prison corporations. Today’s profiteering involves the complete outsourcing of the criminal legal system to the highest bidder. Corruption of money in politics allows greedy corporations to decimate families in disproportionately Black, brown, and Indigenous communities.
With burgeoning anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislative crackdowns at all levels, private prison corporations are increasing their hold on US detention policy. Today about 90% of detained immigrants are held in privately operated facilities, the highest percentage in US history. In a for-profit prison, jail, or immigrant detention facility, people are imprisoned by a private third party that contracts with a government agency. Contractual agreements between governments and private entities commit prisoners to privatized facilities and are paid a per diem or monthly rate, either for each immigrant or prisoner in the facility, or for each place available, whether occupied or not. Such contracts may be for the operation only of a facility, or for design, construction, and operation.
The Trump administration leaves no doubt that it will detain as many undocumented immigrants as it can and send them to for-profit centers. And to help make sure that happens, private prison companies spend millions on campaigns and congressional lobbying efforts, just like businesses that sell cars, real estate, hamburgers, or toothpaste.
Everyone interested should join all state and local efforts to end privatization. profiteering, and barbarous inappropriate imprisonment of immigrants.
Next to private health insurance corporations, there is no greater disconnect between the public good and private interests than the rise of corporate-owned and-operated for-profit jails. The interest of private jails lies not in the obvious social good of having the minimum necessary number of inmates, but instead having as many immigrants and prisoners as possible housed as cheaply and profitably as possible. In the push for austerity and privatization, private profit US prison corporations have become premier examples of private capitalist enterprises seeking profits from the misery of man while trying to ensure that nothing is done to decrease that misery.
Profiteering private prison corporations are cashing in on the misery and desperation of US citizens as many county jail and state prison systems privatize throughout the nation. Private companies house over 10% of the nation’s total prison population, with privatization and profiteering madness now extending to well over 6 million people under correctional supervision, more than ever were in Stalin’s gulags.
Very alarming, the private prison industry now incarcerates 90% of all immigrant children, adolescents, and adults. A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Alonzo Pena, acknowledged that the private companies have all too often fallen short, noting that “it wasn’t their priority to ensure that the highest standards were being met.” ICE deserves some blame and responsibility: “We set up this partnership with the private industry in a way that was supposed to make things much more effective, much more economical, but unfortunately, it was in the execution and the monitoring and the auditing we fell behind, we fell short.”
How to Privatize a Jail
The standard method for privatization of jail:
- Defund government services to make sure things don’t work and people get angry;
- Hand program over to private capital;
- Continue to defund local publicly funded jail and state prison services;
- Urge and pressure county commissions and state government to allow for-profit, private prison corporations to take over under the guise of “rescuing” jail functions; and
- Promote the “appearance of rescue” of the county jail or state service by self-serving private profit driven programs to the community.
In reality it’s not long until privatization falls short in quality service; the private jail program saves money by employing fewer, less-trained guards and other workers and pays them badly, with horror stories often accompanying how these jails are run. In addition to Department of Justice (DOJ) studies and experience showing that governments save little money, if any, by turning over prison functions to private outfits, the DOJ also concluded that private prisons were in general more violent than government-operated institutions, and ordered a phaseout under the Obama and Biden administrations of their use at the federal level. Regrettably, reversing that order was one of the first things that President Donald Trump did on taking office.
Claims of Private Prison Corporations
Without evidence, private prison corporations always claim that their program will save the county and state millions annually. Private companies, such as CoreCivic and GEO Group, tout their virtues by saying they build and operate prisons more cheaply than governments can, due to the public sector’s many mandates. Their day-to-day operations are similarly more efficient and less costly, they assert, and they do it all without compromising public safety. The bottom line, they say, is that they allow governments to free up public funds for pursuits that mean more to most taxpayers than how felons or immigrants are jailed. To make sure that happens, private prison companies spend millions on donations to politicians from both political parties at all levels of government, campaigns, and congressional lobbying efforts, just like businesses that sell cars, real estate, or hamburgers.
“Privately operated facilities are better equipped to handle changes in the flow of illegal immigration because they can open or close new facilities as needed,” said Rodney E. King, CoreCivic’s public affairs manager. Critics tell a different story. They cite moments like a 2015 riot to protest poor conditions at a prison in Arizona run by another major private player, Management and Training Corporation. Earlier at that same institution, three inmates had escaped and murdered two people.
Many case examples show scrimping by private immigrant detention facility operators, with bad food and shabby healthcare for inmates, low pay and inadequate training for guards, and hiring shortages. At immigrant detention centers, operators see little need to offer extensive educational programs for children or job training since people held there are mostly destined for deportation. Basic hygiene items like toothpaste or tampons are marked up by 300% or more by Commissary corporations. Contributing to suffering and preventable deaths, some private healthcare providers routinely delay or deny treament behind bars. Private food vendors serve meals that are frequently expired or nutritionally inadequate, all in the name of cutting costs and maximizing returns. “To maximize profit, you minimize your expenditures,” said Rachel Steinback, a lawyer for hunger strikers.
US DOJ Concludes No Cost Savings
Despite many promises that jail and prison privatization will lead to big cost savings, such savings, as a comprehensive study by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the US Department of Justice, concluded, “have simply not materialized.” To the extent that private prison and jail operators do manage to save money, they do so through “reductions in trained staff, fringe benefits, and other labor-related costs.” Economist Paul Krugman noted that “as more and more government functions get privatized, states become ‘pay-to-play’ paradises in which both political contributions and contracts for friends and relatives become quid pro quo for getting government busines.”
Conclusion
The corrupt nexus of privatization and patronage by private 1% corporations and oligarchs is undermining local and state levels of government across the USA. Longer-term institutionalization by for-profit corporations is promoted via harsh sentencing guidelines and other means for keeping inmates doing lengthy, and very profitable for the corporation, sentences. To fix this problem, we should demand that private corporations be removed from the administration of our local, state, and federal public prison programs. Privatization of jail services increases costs without any corresponding increase in quality or care. Until then, the powerful in county, state, and federal government, along with their corporate oligarch partners to whom they are beholden, will continue privatizing and profiteering as they please, while laughing all the way to the bank. Everyone interested should join all state and local efforts to end privatization. profiteering, and barbarous inappropriate imprisonment of immigrants.
In the new book, The Prison Industry: How it Works and Who Profits, authors Bianca Tylek and Worth Rises write:
Private prisons have embedded themselves in every facet of the criminal and immigration systems. While people have begun to challenge private prison corporations, there must be vigilant attention paid to the industry’s attempt to change its toxic image and expand into adjacent business lines. After all, whether walls are built out of concrete, wire, or WiFi, a prison is still a prison, and a private prison still needs more bodies to grow. No matter their form, private prison corporations have no place in any system that claims to be about justice.
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Report Names 'Corporate Oligarchs' Who Are Cashing In as Trump-GOP Austerity Assails Workers
"Trump's presidency is a vehicle for billionaires to loot the government and line their own pockets, while working people bear the cost," said one advocate.
Jun 18, 2025
Climate action, pro-democracy, and other civil society groups have warned for months that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are intent on cutting essential programs that millions of Americans rely on while providing the richest households and corporations with at least $5 trillion in tax cuts and other benefits.
But while tech CEO Elon Musk has been highly visible since President Donald Trump took office and selected him to spearhead the administration's slashing of hundreds of thousands of federal jobs at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—an advisory board Musk has since left—other billionaires who are among the top people set to cash in from Trump's policies are less known to the public, even as they wield considerable influence over corporate regulations, privatization, and right-wing attacks on renewable energy.
In a report released Tuesday, the grassroots group Popular Democracy in Action details how six of the top beneficiaries of Trump's assault on social services and his xenophobic, pro-corporate, anti-science policies are cashing in while people across the U.S. struggle with the rising cost of living; fear the administration's mass deportation campaign; and brace for cuts to Medicaid, education, and Social Security.
Along with household names like Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—a former Trump critic—the report, titled Trump's Corporate Oligarchs, points to fossil fuel billionaire Harold G. Hamm, founder and chair of Continental Resources, as someone who has spent years working "behind the scenes to advance oil and gas interests."
Hamm is not among the more than 10 billionaires who have nabbed powerful positions within Trump's administration—making his Cabinet the richest in U.S. history, with a collective net worth of $460 billion. But with close ties to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Hamm has pushed to undo former President Joe Biden's fossil fuel regulations within the Inflation Reduction Act and urged Trump to fast-track drilling permits, likely harming poor and rural communities that are disproportionately used for fossil fuel extraction.
Last year, it was Hamm who organized a dinner at Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, where the then-presidential candidate allegedly promised 20 oil and gas executives he would repeal environmental regulations if they raised $1 billion for his campaign.
Hamm's company reported over $714 million in tax savings in 2018 from Trump's so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which included the corporate tax cuts that the GOP now seeks to make permanent—while taxpayers pay more than $20 billion per year toward fossil fuel subsidies, putting their own communities at risk from climate disasters.
Hamm and Trump's other wealthy donors are able to benefit directly from their chosen candidate's policies—to the detriment of the American public—"because the U.S. is currently functioning as an oligarchy: a government where a small group of powerful, wealthy people are calling the shots," reads the report.
George Zoley is another lesser-known oligarch who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump's campaigns and is now reaping the rewards as the private prison corporation he founded, GEO Group, benefits directly from the president's mass deportation campaign.
Zoley told shareholders shortly after Trump was reelected in November that the coming anti-immigration crackdown would present an "unprecedented opportunity" for GEO Group, which provides 40% of the beds used for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and is the largest provider of ICE transportation services.
The company was also awarded a $1 billion, 15-year contract to open and run the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey.
"GEO Group is incentivized by profit to be a willing and enthusiastic partner in the Trump administration's mass incarceration,
detention, and deportation plans," reads the report. "GEO Group has been and will continue to be a key force behind the targeting and criminalization of poor, working-class, marginalized communities—including immigrants."
Trump's anti-immigration agenda is also being partially fueled by big data firm Palantir, co-founded by another of the oligarchs profiled by Popular Democracy in Action: Peter Thiel, a former mentor of Vice President JD Vance who, despite publicly criticizing Trump during his first term, provided "mission-critical" digital profiling tools to ICE to help track immigrants and conduct raids.
Thiel's "anti-democratic, libertarian philosophy" also underpinned the Trump administration and DOGE's work "dismantling federal agencies, attacking diversity and equity programs, pushing deregulation, and dismantling public aid."
Despite his past criticism of Trump, Thiel's often secretive firm is projected to report more than $2.6 billion in revenue from government contracts in 2025 as Palantir provides support to the president's mass deportation agenda.
"Trump's presidency is a vehicle for billionaires to loot the government and line their own pockets, while working people bear the cost," Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper, co-executive directors of Popular Democracy in Action, said in a statement. "These cuts to Medicare, housing, [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits, and immigrant protections aren't accidents—they're part of a calculated scheme to turn public suffering into private profit."
The report names Musk, the world's richest person with a net worth of $389.4 billion, as the top beneficiary of the Trump administration, even though the Tesla CEO has officially parted ways with the White House.
After spending $235 million to help Trump get elected, in addition to wielding unprecedented influence over the administration, Musk is poised to benefit from billions of dollars in government contracts and foreign deals for his Starlink satellite service—all while benefiting from Trump's tax cuts and pushing to gut the social safety net.
The report also highlights Bezos, who has been accused of censoring The Washington Post's coverage of Trump and the 2024 election, as a top beneficiary of the president's second term. Bezos' space technology company, Blue Origin, was awarded a $2.3 billion contract in April, and he has pledged to "help" Trump as he moves toward "reducing regulation"—including by gutting top worker protection agencies and placing low-income workers at Amazon in harm's way.
Popular Democracy in Action also highlighted corporate landlord Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and Big Pharma giant Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks. Both have benefited from Trump's tax cuts, while Schwarzman has pushed for corporate deregulation and fought against protections for renters. Ricks was a major opponent of the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare drug price negotiations program, and benefited recently when Trump "signed a healthcare executive order that will create longer delays before Medicare can negotiate certain drug prices," making healthcare more expensive for seniors while raising Eli Lilly's profits.
"In a representative democracy, elected officials are supposed to respond to the priorities and interests of the people," reads the report. "Trump's 'oligarchs' are billionaires who are influencing political decision-making in order to increase their wealth."
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After 'Heartless' ICE Refusal, Judge Orders Officials to Allow Mahmoud Khalil to See His Family
ICE and a private prison contractor had cited alleged "security concerns" when they refused to allow Khalil see his wife and newborn son.
May 21, 2025
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey ruled Wednesday that immigration officials at a Louisiana detention facility must allow former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil to see his family, after the authorities refused to grant Khalil's request on their own.
Farbiarz found, based on a court filing by Khalil's lawyers, that his wife, Noor Abdalla "is aware of certain facts that would be of assistance to counsel in their current habeas representation of the petitioner before this court."
"The court is inclined to issue an order today... to permit the petitioner, his wife, and the petitioner's lawyers to meet together tomorrow morning at the facility where the petitioner is held," Farbiarz wrote.
Khalil is scheduled to have an immigration hearing Thursday, which Abdalla and her newborn son flew to Louisiana from New York to attend.
The order did not state that a visit specifically for Khalil to spend time with his wife and son should be arranged.
Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, and other groups helping to represent Khalil in his habeas corpus case had submitted a filing with Farbiarz Wednesday, asking him to require LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana to allow Khalil to visit with his family for at least two hours—exactly a month after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) refused to allow him to be present for his son's birth—or "at minimum," allow Abdalla to join a contact visit with Khalil's legal team.
"Petitioner's counsel have made repeated requests for a contact visit to occur," wrote the lawyers. "Such a visit is necessary for the most elementary human reasons and given the ongoing strain of his pending habeas corpus petition, the visit is critical to ensure Mr. Khalil, who is an active participant in his legal case, can meaningfully contribute to the proceedings before this court."
The request was rejected on Wednesday morning after Abdalla and her baby had flown more than 1,400 miles for the hearing.
Along with the private prison contractor that runs the facility, GEO Group, ICE had cited "security concerns" when refusing to allow Khalil to see his family.
"The facility's refusal contradicts ICE's own directives, including ICE Directive 11064.3, which affirms the importance of minimizing disruptions to family life and preserving parental rights," said the ACLU in a statement. "The Performance-Based National Detention Standards also explicitly encourage contact visits, especially where young children and long travel distances are involved."
Abdalla said she was "furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares to call itself just."
"After flying over a thousand miles to Louisiana with our newborn son, his very first flight, all so his father could finally hold him in his arms, ICE has denied us even this most basic human right," said Abdalla. "This is not just heartless. It is deliberate violence, the calculated cruelty of a government that tears families apart without remorse. And I cannot ignore the echoes of this pain in the stories of Palestinian families, torn apart by Israeli military prisons and bombs, denied dignity, denied life. Our struggle is not isolated. This system is unjust, and we will fight until Mahmoud is home."
Abdalla, a U.S. citizen, was eight months pregnant when immigration agents accosted her and Khalil in March outside their apartment on Columbia's campus and took him away in an unmarked vehicle. He was informed that his green card had been revoked and was taken first to a detention center in New Jersey and then flown to Louisiana, where an immigration judge later ruled that the Trump administration's deportation case against him could go forward. That ruling was handed down despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio's admission that Khalil is not accused of breaking any laws and that he was targeted because his advocacy for Palestinian rights was seen as detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests.
"The government chose to arrest and detain Mahmoud thousands of miles away in the Louisiana detention gulags to punish him for his support for Palestinian human rights, and is doubling down on their retaliatory punishment by denying him the most elementary human contact with his wife and child," said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "ICE leadership and elected officials must act to remedy this grotesque and unnecessary inhumanity for Mahmoud—and for all others."
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