President Donald Trump’s administration is rapidly expanding America’s illegal immigration detention system through the United States as part of his campaign promise to increase the country’s deportation numbers — and it has been a huge win for private prison companies on Wall Street.
Trump’s administration has signed massive contracts with a number of private prison companies, aiming to increase capacity from 41,000 to 100,000 beds nationwide.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has awarded billions in new contracts to private companies including GEO Group and CoreCivic.
GEO Group recently received a $1 billion, 15-year contract to reopen Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, with 1,000 beds, making it the largest ICE facility on the East Coast. CoreCivic won a contract to reopen the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, housing up to 2,400 people through March 2030.
ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons told attendees at a border security conference that the agency needs “to get better at treating this like a business” and compared deportations to “Amazon, trying to get your product delivered in 24 hours.”
The expansion comes as ICE currently holds about 46,000 people in over 100 detention centers, with problems of overcrowding in cities like Miami. The agency requested funding for only 34,000 beds in fiscal year 2025 but were forced to release 160 detainees in February when facilities reached 109% capacity.
Congress approved legislation providing $175 billion for illegal immigration enforcement and deportation as a part of the recent “Big, Beautiful” spending bill, which is over 20 times ICE’s annual budget. The Department of Homeland Security has posted requests for contracts totaling up to $45 billion over two years for detention facilities, transportation, and security services.
As such, private prison stocks have surged since Trump’s election. GEO Group shares increased 94% while CoreCivic rose 62%. During recent earnings calls, both companies reported revenue exceeding Wall Street expectations.
“Our business is perfectly aligned with the demands of this moment,” said CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger. GEO Group CEO George Zoley described “unprecedented growth opportunities” as illegal immigration detention facilities reach capacity levels never seen before.
The expansion will reopen facilities across eight states including California, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington.
Louisiana has become a major detention hub despite having relatively few illegal immigrants and no border with Mexico. The state is second only to Texas in detention bed space after ICE took over five former criminal jails in 2019. State laws passed in 2017 reduced criminal penalties, freeing up jail space that ICE quickly filled.
“ICE gets to choose, basically, the courts where their cases are heard” by locating detention centers in particular places, said Mary Yanik, a Tulane University Law School professor. Most Louisiana detention centers sit in rural areas, hours away from major Democratic cities.
ICE also awarded a $3.85 billion contract to Deployed Resources LLC to operate a detention camp at Fort Bliss Army base in Texas. The company previously ran Border Patrol tent encampments and is now shifting to ICE deportation facilities.
Nearly 90% of alleged illegal immigrants in ICE custody are held in privately operated facilities, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The federal government has used private contractors for illegal immigration detention since the 1980s, but the current expansion represents the largest increase in decades.
The administration has also sent illegal immigrants to detention facilities abroad, including Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and facilities in El Salvador.
An estimated 11 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The Trump administration aims to deport millions through the expanded detention system.