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Private Prison Firm GEO Group Reports Record $254 Million Profit After New ICE Contracts
"Trump’s donors are making money from this violent separation of our immigrant families," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib. "This is corruption."
Feb 13, 2026
Private prison company GEO Group on Thursday reported a company record of $254 million in profit last year—a roughly 700% increase over 2024—driven by asset sales and contracts with the Trump administration to build several new US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities across the US.
GEO Group secured approximately $520 million in new or expanded contracts in 2025, based on annualized revenue, according to company founder and executive chairman George Zoley.
"This represents the largest amount of new business we have won in a single year in our company's history," Zoley said during an earnings call on Thursday. "We have entered into new contracts to house ICE detainees at four facilities totaling approximately 6,000 beds."
Those facilities are: Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey; North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan; Folkston Processing Center at the D. Ray James Correctional Institution in Georgia; and a so-called "deportation depot" at the Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson, Florida.
"The census across our active ICE facilities has continued to steadily increase from the third quarter at approximately 22,000 to presently approximately 24,000, which is the highest level of ICE populations we have ever had," Zoley said. "This past year, we also significantly expanded the delivery of our secure transportation services on behalf of both ICE and the US Marshals Service, valued at approximately $60 million in incremental annualized revenue."
"We continue to be optimistic about the importance and growth potential of the ICE contract," he added. "The new two-year contract includes pricing for 361,000 participants in year one and 465,000 participants in year two. With the capital investment we made in 2025, we believe we have the capability in scaling monitoring devices and case management services to achieve those significantly increased participation levels and far beyond if desired by ICE."
The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed last July by President Donald Trump contained a massive increase in funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE's parent agency, including about $45 billion for expanding immigrant detention capacity.
Days after Trump's 2024 reelection—which private prison companies funded to the tune of over $1 million—Zoley hailed the "unprecedented opportunity" of the incoming administration's mass deportation campaign.
“The GEO Group was built for this unique moment in our company’s [and] country’s history, and the opportunity that it will bring,” he beamed.
Unlike state prisons or county and local jails, which are accountable to oversight agencies, privately operated ICE detention centers are not subject to state regulation or inspection. These facilities are plagued by a history of abuse, often sexual in nature, and sometimes alleged deadly medical neglect—problems that carried over from previous administrations.
Thirty-two people died in ICE custody last year, the agency's deadliest in two decades. Most of these deaths reportedly occurred in privately operated detention centers, and 10 immigrants died in GEO Group facilities, according to data collected by attorney and independent journalist Andrew Free.
GEO Group's earnings call came just days after three detainees at one of the company's facilities in Washington state filed a lawsuit accusing two guards there of sexually assaulting and beating them, and then trying to cover it up. The company has been previously sued for alleged inadequate medical care, wrongful deaths, and forced labor.
This, in a system in which immigrant detention is meant to be nonpunitive and in which only a tiny fraction of those detained have been charged or convicted of any violent crime, according to a leaked DHS document exposed earlier this week.
Another private prison company, CoreCivic, on Thursday reported $116.5 million in 2025 profits, a nearly 70% increase from the previous year. The operator of ICE facilities including the notorious Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas—which detainees describe as a measles-infested "living hell" where they’ve been served moldy food full of worms and forced to drink putrid water—said it expects 2026 to be even more profitable.
Some private prison investors expressed frustration that ICE isn't jailing enough people to generate even more revenue.
"One of the big questions, I think... has been the pace of detention by ICE, that it's been below what people... thought [it] was going to be," Joseph Gomes of NOBLE Capital Markets, Inc. said on Thursday's CoreCivic earnings call. "I think... people thought we'd be at that 100,000 level. We're at... a little over 70,000."
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Standing Witness to ICE’s Cruelty Is Peaceful Protesting Done Right
If we want to preserve our democracy, then none of us have the luxury of averting our eyes to the Trump administration’s injustices. No matter how grueling it may be, we must grit our teeth, bear witness, and fight.
Jan 01, 2026
Throughout 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been abducting people across the United States. This includes people like Rümeysa Öztürk who was arrested by six plainclothes officers as she left her home. It includes Frank Miranda, a US citizen, who was detained by plainclothes officers outside his Portland workplace and detained for hours. It includes Patricia Quishpe who was arrested by Border Patrol agents as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz.
These abductions are being fueled by multiple factors, including the Trump administration’s disregard for due process, their indifference to the safety of people of color, as well as ICE’s hired private sector bounty hunters. To date, ICE has hired 10 contractors with ties to spy agencies and the military-industrial complex to track and surveil suspected migrants. They have also partnered with private prison companies like Geo Group and CoreCivic. Currently, nearly 90% of all people in ICE custody are held in for-profit facilities. These multimillion-dollar contracts have been made possible by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act which allocated $170 billion to ICE for border and interior enforcement.
These partnerships and resources have allowed ICE to effectively create a secret police force that kidnaps people off the street, detains them in private prisons, and prevents lawmakers from exercising any oversight. ICE has become the Gestapo.
While this threat is real and growing, people are resisting ICE’s fascist tactics. This includes the work being done by groups like “Witness at the Border,” an advocacy group that has been monitoring and reporting ICE activities since 2018. Their work includes talking to people coming in and out of detention centers, tracking buses and flights carrying detainees, as well as traveling to the US-Mexico border to witness the dire conditions migrants face there. They have held in-person and online seminars to inform the public about what they have seen and learned, as well as lobbied state legislatures and Congress to hold ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accountable for their abuses.
We cannot trust the Trump administration to be transparent with the American public. If DHS is becoming a secret police force, then it is up to us to bring their abuses to light. We must all bear witness to their cruelty.
These “witnesses” provide civilian oversight over ICE abuses. As Lee Goodman, one of the activists describes it: “Our process basically is to do what we can to see, to listen, to hear, to talk to people who know and to get the word. We don’t want [ICE] to ever think they can do what they want without being observed.” Goodman has been part of witnessing efforts at detention centers in Tornillo, Texas and Homestead, Florida—both of which have since shut down.
Advocates for Witness at the Border are currently witnessing outside several detention centers, including the North Lake Processing Center in Michigan and the Broadview ICE Facility in Illinois. These efforts are incredibly important. From the start of Trump’s mass deportation campaign, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has worked to restrict congressional oversight. State representatives in Illinois, for instance, had been denied entry into the Broadview facility for months until a federal judge intervened in mid-December. This, despite numerous allegations of human rights abuses occurring at the Broadview ICE Facility, including denying detainees food and medical care as well as forcing them to sleep on concrete floors amid “urine and dirty water.”
We cannot trust the Trump administration to be transparent with the American public. If DHS is becoming a secret police force, then it is up to us to bring their abuses to light. We must all bear witness to their cruelty.
Fortunately, many are seeing the value of witnessing as a form of peaceful protest. Individuals, like Job Garcia and Carlitos Ricardo Parias, have recorded ICE’s cruelty and shared those videos on social media. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta have announced a new online portal to share information about unlawful activity by federal agents and officers across the state. As Gov. Newson puts it: “This new portal gives Californians an easy and safe way to speak up, share what they see, and help us hold people accountable. No one is above the law.”
DHS wants nothing more than to commit their illicit activities unseen. They fear witnesses and will resort to violence to stop them.
Beyond drawing attention to the problem, witnessing has several praiseworthy features.
First, and perhaps most obviously, witnesses document abuse. This is not only important for calling out ICE’s actions today, but for holding the people committing these abuses—including Secretary Noem and members of the Trump administration—criminally accountable in the future. When their day in court comes, we must ensure that the evidence against them is resounding. We must bear witness today to ensure justice tomorrow.
Second, witnesses empower and protect victims. DHS continues to deny any wrongdoing. Secretary Noem has even insisted, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that, “there’s no American citizens that have been arrested or detained.” Yet, videos of ICE agents doing precisely this prove that she is lying. These videos validate the experiences of US citizens who have been assaulted by ICE agents. It provides them the leverage to speak out against an administration that wants nothing more than to discredit and silence them.
Third, witnessing provides a fuller picture. From the outside, it’s easy to think that everyone working at ICE facilities is simply evil or, at best, morally indifference. However, Majorie Ziefert, an activist working with Witness at the Border, reports that the reality on the ground is quite different. She has spoken with staff at processing centers who express hating what is happening to detainees at those facilities. They only continue to work there because they need the income. While we may still condemn those people for their part in ICE’s cruelty, witnessing draws attention to how capitalism pressures people to contribute to unjust systems. At the same time, it helps bridge inroads that may lead to unlikely alliances.
Fourth, to witness is to take a risk. ICE agents have attacked and detained people like Barbara Stone, a volunteer with the group Detention Resistance that observes and documents immigration court proceedings. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin has claimed that “videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents. We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.” This response by DHS highlights the value of witnessing as a form of protest. DHS wants nothing more than to commit their illicit activities unseen. They fear witnesses and will resort to violence to stop them.
Witnessing is risky, but facing this risk may help us cultivate the kinds of virtues—courage, selflessness, justice, perseverance, and empathy—that make people into good activists. The reality is that the Trump administration is far from over. The situation will likely get far worse, especially as DHS invests in more invasive surveillance technologies. We will all need to become more resilient to combat what comes next.
Fifth, like any form of protest, witnessing will be more impactful when done alongside others. But whether it’s at a detention center or on the street, whether it’s a testimony or recording a video, anyone can be a witness.
In 2025, the Trump administration deported more than 600,000 people while stripping 1.6 million immigrants of their legal status. In 2026, they seek to expand their efforts by denaturalizing 100 to 200 people per month. If we want to preserve our democracy, then none of us has the luxury of averting our eyes to the Trump administration’s injustices. No matter how grueling it may be, we must grit our teeth, bear witness, and fight.
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House Dems 'Deeply Concerned' About Death in For-Profit ICE Processing Center
"While ICE claims he died of natural causes," said Reps. Delia Ramirez and Rashida Tlaib, "there have been numerous complaints from family members and advocates about inhumane conditions and inadequate medical care at North Lake."
Dec 19, 2025
A press release from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday regarding the death of an immigrant named Nenko Stanev Gantchev at one of the agency's facilities suggested ICE had provided a "safe, secure, and humane" environment—but considering numerous reports about medical neglect and abuse at immigrant detention centers in recent months, two Democratic lawmakers are demanding a full investigation into the man's death.
US Reps. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) called on the federal government to open "an immediate, transparent investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Gantchev’s death, including an investigation into reports from other detainees that he asked for medical assistance and did not receive it in time to save his life."
That kind of medical neglect has been reported at immigration detention facilities such as Florida's so-called "Alligator Alcatraz" and Krome North Service Processing Center and at detention centers run by for-profit companies like GEO Group—the corporation that runs North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, where Gantchev was found dead in his cell on Monday.
"We are deeply concerned about the death of Mr. Gantchev, an Illinois resident who was detained at the for-profit GEO Group’s North Lake Processing Center," said Ramirez and Tlaib. "While ICE claims he died of natural causes, the circumstances surrounding his death are not yet clear, and we know there have been numerous complaints from family members and advocates about inhumane conditions and inadequate medical care at North Lake."
Ten days before Gantchev's death, Tlaib conducted an oversight visit at the facility after receiving reports of cold temperatures, inadequate food, unsanitary facilities, and inmates having trouble accessing medical care.
“During this visit, we learned there have been multiple suicide attempts at the facility, including one in the last couple weeks, and heard that more medical staff are needed,” she said at the time. “No human being should be trapped in cages, forced to experience dehumanizing conditions, or separated from their family.”
North Lake was a juvenile detention facility in the 1990s, when the University of Michigan documented allegations of medical neglect and abuse. It later operated as a federal prison until 2022, when then-President Joe Biden prohibited private prison companies from running federal detention facilities. In June, GEO Group reopened the jail as an ICE facility.
A lawsuit filed in September by the ACLU of Michigan on behalf of an inmate at North Lake, Jose Contreras Cervantes, alleged that for nearly a month, staffers at the facility did not give him the chemotherapy pills he had been taking for leukemia.
Ramirez and Tlaib suggested that the past and current reports of abuse at the center, its operator's history, and ICE's record this year regarding detainee deaths left many open questions about how Gantchev died.
"To date, we are aware of at least 30 deaths at ICE detention centers this year, making 2025 the deadliest year for immigrants in ICE custody," the congresswomen said.
Gantchev was 56 and was from Bulgaria, and was arrested on a warrant by ICE agents in Chicago in September. He had previously been arrested in the 1990s and 2000s for theft, battery, and driving under the influence. He was granted lawful permanent residence in 2005, but the status was revoked in 2009 and an immigration judge ordered Gantchev's removal in 2023.
Christine Sauvé of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center told MLive that in the immigration detention system, there has been “heightened cruelty under the Trump administration.”
“As this administration creates new barriers and releases fewer people, individuals are languishing in detention, often with delayed or inadequate medical care, while separated needlessly from their families,” Sauvé said.
Ramirez and Tlaib said that "the Trump administration’s attacks on our communities and immigrant neighbors must end."
"We will continue to provide oversight to hold ICE accountable," they said, "and protect our residents and communities.”
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