It is difficult to know where to look at the wave of activity from the opening days of President Donald Trump’s second administration. There Elus Musk in Doge, a potential trade war with Colombia, a comprehensive pardon for Capitol riots, and the chaotic background to freeze financing. In immigration, the president moves quickly, which divides the immigrants who entered the United States illegally. While all of these moves have attracted attention, the flying under the radar so far is one of the industries that will be considered the main surprise as Trump’s plans are in place: private prisons.
The President and a barrage signed the executive orders and procedures on his first day. Among them: revocation An executive order signed by President Joe Biden, who directs the Ministry of Justice not to renew contracts with private prison companies aimed at profit for profit to house persons convicted of federal crimes. By late 2022, the Prison Office ended all its contracts with special prisons, according to Biden. Now, under Trump, the face has been turned back again. This step is not surprising-a decade ago, special prisons were in an indirect situation with the Ministry of Justice. The Obama administration moved to its phase, and it was reflected in Trump 1.0, and Biden was attached to them again, and Trump again reflected this decision. The industry expected the same. George Zoli, CEO of Geo Group, a profit prison company, said in a November profit call, he expected Trump to reflect all Biden’s orders on the “first day”.
While private prison companies will not mind restoring business from BOP, this is not where there is the opportunity. Corecivic, a major operator of private prisons in the United States, admitted an investor in 2021 that the office no longer has a lot of need for private facilities after the population of federal prisoners decreased – and less than 10 % of these prisoners They were in private prisons. The opportunity is Trump’s plans for mass detention and migrant deportation. Each of the democratic and republican administrations continued to work with prisons aimed at migrating-for example, the Biden administration deported more people more than the first Trump administration and often detained these people in private prison facilities. But Trump says he is planning to intensify matters now, as hundreds of thousands of immigrants have moved through the regime in a way that will be a huge blessing for companies.
“This, for us, is an unprecedented opportunity to help the federal government and the Trump administration to achieve a more aggressive immigration policy,” Zoli said in the profit call.
Although he is not relatively noticeable in the opening days of the administration, private prison companies are a secret weapon of the president in his war against immigrants, and they stand to reap some of the main profits in this process.
While the average American may not be aware of the quality of the Trump immigration plans for private prisons, Wall Street is definitely. GEO and Corecivic stock prices have increased by 105 % and 50 % since the 2024 elections.
The thing that really paid the stock price because the elections is Trump’s position mainly that will deport millions of people.
“The thing that really paid the stock price because the elections is Trump’s position in the first place that he will deport millions of people,” said Joe Gomez, Administrative Director of stock research at Nobel Capital Markets.
There are three main areas in which private prison companies stand on making money on Trump’s deportation plans. One is the detention, as in keeping immigrants in the facilities until the court listening sessions or even expelling them from the country. The second is the monitoring of immigrants who have not been detained, and the third is the transfer around it, and perhaps from the United States.
The enforcement of migration and customs is funding to keep 41,500 beds for detained immigrants, but the borders of President Tom Human, suggested that he needed at least 100,000 beds to carry out Trump exploration plans. Recently, the recent Riley Law, which requires the detention of migrants accused of crimes such as the theft 60,000 additional beds. Special prison operators will be a key to help in this expansion, although they will not be the only ones – Trump said he is also planning to use space in the Guantanamo Bay for the home.
GEO, the largest ICE contractor, has about 1,3500 beds for migrants, but the executives said it is in a good position to expand the range of more than 31,000 beds in the near future. Likewise, Corecivic He told Wall Street Journal You can get her capacity for 25,000 beds by reopening its recently closed facilities. She has also searched for families detention sites, and the CEO of her informed the magazine that the company was “very prepared” to discuss the detention of unaccompanied children as well.
GEO also runs the emergence of ICE intensive supervision, which monitors immigrants as they pass through legal procedures as an alternative to detention. Gio says about 182,500 people participate in this program daily, but this number may grow dramatically. In calling the company’s profits, Zuli said that Jio believes that she has technology and resources to expand the ISAP contract to “several hundreds of thousands and the following to several million participants.”
It is believed that about 11 million people live in the United States illegally. Gomez said that if the government will monitor a certain percentage of these people, it would be “great positive” for Jews and can also bring others, “Gomez said. “If this contract becomes very large, there are likely to be other players like Corecivic that can also benefit from it,” he said.
At the end of the transfer, private prison companies contract with ICE to transport immigrants on the ground and in the air. In her profit call she said, she expects that the sub -weather contracting services will generate $ 25 million in annual revenue and that she believes that she might expand if necessary, too.
In a statement in favor of Business Insider, a GEO spokesman said that the company was investing 70 million dollars in “increasing housing, transportation, capacity control and services to meet the expected requirements of priorities to enforce the immigration law in the federal government.” A spokesman for Corecivic said that the company “remains in regular contact with ICE and all our government partners to understand their changing needs, and we are working within the applicable purchases.”
It is not the occurrence of private prison companies that ended in this situation. For years, they were working hard to work to work on public employees, pressed, and made donations for campaigns, especially for Trump and other Republicans. While many corporate executives have reached the idea of attracting Trump in his second term, private prisons were there all the time.
In the 2016 elections, GEO donated $ 225,000 to Super Pac, supporter of Trump Back, to rebuild America now through a subsidiary. (Al -Dawa Group filed the Campaign Legal Center a complaint with the Federal Elections Committee, saying that the money violates the political contributions by federal contractors, but this was rejected because of a dead end on FEC. Trump opened for the year 2016. Geo held its annual conference in 2017 in a club Trump National Golf in Miami, and one of the birds A He stayed at the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC. Pam Bondi, the new Public Prosecutor of Trump, pressed Gio recently in 2019.
In early 2024, The geographical geography of his donation To the Trump campaign and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Trump SUPER PAC, it makes the great America again in the individual executive company at Geo and Corecivic who made great donations to Trump and PACS. and ABC News Analysis I found that private prison companies donated more than a million dollars to re -election Trump, and now they hope that all their efforts will come.
“We can assume, given their abundance after the elections, that they are really excited about the possibilities of making money and expanding the” demand “that will happen to them and their services at the present time. In the detention surveillance network, a group of advocacy opposing immigration detention. She added, however, that expanding the ability of detention is not something that the administration can achieve overnight. “It will take time to build infrastructure,” she said.
Trump’s plans will not take time – you will also take a lot of money. Companies like GEO and Corecivic hope to obtain a reduction in this money, but it is not clear where it will come exactly. Even before the president took office, ICE was facing a budget deficiency of $ 230 million, NBC News mentionedQuoting two American officials. To implement immigration plans in Trump, the administration can move money within the Ministry of Internal Security from places such as the Cyber Security Agency, infrastructure, coast guard, and the FBI. Other agencies may also withdraw help. But in the end, Congress will need to save more money towards its project.
They will need a lot of money and find places to put these people.
“This is also a huge tax on taxpayers,” Tailic said. “Their entire business depends on the government that pays the price of more people.”
PJ Lechleitner, who held the position of ICE director under Biden’s leadership and spent 20 years in DHS. But the numbers on the Trump administration float will require “years of infrastructure to estimate high -end.”
Lieglitner told me: “If they would continue to follow this, which I have every indication that they will need more money and find places to put these people.”
Even if every dollar is approved, building new facilities takes time. This may compel the Trump administration to employ the practice known as “hunting and release”, Rick Sue, a law professor at North Carolina University, told me. Although it may not be exactly in Trump’s mind, it represents a good deal for private prison companies, which will be keen and able to help monitor migrants.
Whatever your position on immigration, the idea of criminal detention is an uncomfortable commercial institution. “What is best for shareholders” is not always in line with what is better for society, country or public safety. Also uncomfortable is the way that the shares of private prison companies seem to appear Bing Bong based on any party in the White House. In 2016, private prison shares crashed when Hillary Clinton achieved a good discussion. Despite what is worth it, these companies have done well in the departments of both political lines-both Democrats and Republicans employed them for various reasons related to immigration.
Matt Nelson, CEO of Freshoe, a national organization and human rights organization, said, but she has not tackled the largest use of private operators, the CEO of Freshoe, a national organization and human rights organization, but it has not dealt with the largest use of the federal government of private operators, and is the CEO of Freshoe company It is a national organization and human rights, but neither of them dealt with the largest use of the federal government of private operators, the Executive Director of Frisoe, a national organization and human rights, “both Obama administration and Biden administration relations with special prisons have put some handrails.” Migration and ice. “If you look at what Trump did, he will not have to retreat a lot,” he said.
Now companies like Geo and Corecivic find themselves in a center that is likely to be a very profitable storm for them. Executive managers may not sit behind Trump at the opening, but they didn’t need to be – they may prefer to fly under the radar anyway, and they are already on the right path to get what they want. They need Trump, but Trump also needs them, and everyone knows that.
Emily Stewart He is a great correspondent in Business Insider, writing about business and economics.
