President Trump’s budget bill, the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” allocates $45 billion for ICE to pay private contractors to implement mass detention of immigrants, paving the way for a huge windfall to companies that donated big to support Trump. In total, the two largest private immigration detention companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, and their subsidiaries and executives, donated nearly $2.8 million to Trump’s 2024 election efforts and inaugural fund, according to a CREW analysis of FEC data. 

90% of immigration detention in the U.S. is done by private, for-profit corporations that have multi–million dollar contracts with ICE. Expanding the Trump administration’s promised mass deportation of immigrants will depend on further reliance on those companies—and on targeting immigrants who are not criminals. 

Since Trump’s inauguration, private ICE detention contractors such as Core Civic and GEO Group have already benefited financially through no-bid detention facility contracts. On April 7, ICE issued a $45 billion Request for Proposals by private contractors to increase capacity for people to be detained. Even before Congress passed the budget bill, by the end of June CoreCivic and GEO Group had already been awarded nine new or expanded contracts, and reopened facilities such as Delaney Hall in New Jersey (run by GEO) and the Dilley and Karnes family detention centers in Texas (run by CoreCivic and GEO).

With the passage of the budget bill allocating $45 billion to increase ICE detention space, Congress has now given this questionable approach its stamp of approval. Much of the new funding is likely to benefit CoreCivic and GEO, as they can simply reopen 14 idle facilities, and they also have the capacity to construct new facilities in 12-18 months, compared to the 4-5 years it would take in the public sector.

GEO Group has told their stockholders that they are “built for this unique moment,” while CoreCivic told theirs that they “anticipate continued robust contracting activity throughout 2025.” In their first quarter 2025 reports, both CoreCivic and GEO Group stated that based on new ICE contracts, they expect to surpass their 2024 revenue of $1.96 billion for CoreCivic and $2.41 billion for GEO. 

Both CoreCivic and GEO’s stocks have risen exponentially (by 56 and 73%, respectively) since the election, with a 3% bump after the budget bill passed.

A look at their political giving suggests that both CoreCivic and GEO Group anticipated that the Trump administration’s immigration policies could benefit their financial fortunes. Together, CoreCivic, GEO Group and their PACs, subsidiaries and CEO donated $2,779,000 to Trump’s campaign, inaugural committee and related fundraising entities. In 2024, CoreCivic contributed $500,000 to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee and its CEO contributed a total of $18,200 to PACs supporting Trump’s campaign and a total of $288,400 by way of the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee to the Republican National Committee, with an additional $10,000 given directly to the party’s National Convention accounts, for a total of $816,600 from CoreCivic and its CEO. GEO Group’s PAC contributed $500,000 to the inaugural committee, and its PAC, its wholly-owned subsidiary, and top executives contributed a total of nearly $1.5 million to the Trump campaign and associated entities, for a grand total of nearly $2 million.

These significant contributions, followed so closely by massive paydays for the private immigration detention industry, raise ethics and corruption concerns. Federal law prohibits current federal contractors from making “pay-to-play” campaign contributions, but does not regulate contributions to inaugural funds. This should be changed. Federal law should also be expanded to prohibit campaign contributions by wholly-owned subsidiaries of corporations, such as GEO Group’s wholly-owned subsidiary that donated $1 million to support Trump. 

In the meantime, intense oversight of the private immigration detention facilities funded by the “Big, Beautiful Bill” is urgently needed.

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