The deportation agenda comes with a price tag--and a payout.
This past Tuesday, July 1st, the President paid a visit to a newly-constructed migrant detention center in the Everglades, ominously dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz." He described the facility as the East coast version of the infamous island prison off the San Francisco coast. When asked if the idea was for detainees to get eaten by alligators if they try to escape, the President replied, "I guess that's the concept." The first arrivals are expected this week.
At the 2025 Border Security Expo in Phoenix in April, the acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director, Todd Lyons, said that his dream for the agency is: squads or trucks rounding up immigrants for deportation the same way that Amazon trucks deliver packages. "We need to get better at treating this like a business," he said, explaining he wants to see a deportation process "like (Amazon) Prime, but with human beings."
This comparison is more than just simile; it reflects the reality of a booming industry built around deportation. Private prison companies make money at nearly every step of the deportation process, earning more than $13 billion in the last decade.
In fact, private prison contractors predicted an increase in earnings upon President Trump's reelection, with some donating up to a million dollars to his campaign in anticipation of a windfall. CEO Brian Evans of Geo Group, the nation's largest private prison company, estimated that his business could make as much as $400 million annually by filling empty or underutilized beds at existing detention facilities to support what he called the "future needs for ICE and the federal government." In the case of Alligator Alcatraz, at least three of the ten contractors involved have given money to Gov. Ron DeSantis or to the Republican Party of Florida.
To understand our immigration policy, all you have to do is follow the money.
Geo Group along with other private prison contractors such as Core Civic have announced the addition of more than 6,000 beds to detention facilities across the country. They are prepared and ready to carry out the administration's Amazon Prime deportation dreams.
This partnership between private prison contractors and the U.S. government to detain migrants is not new. Contracts with migrant detention centers were already expanding during the previous administration. For example, Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anderson, Texas, which is owned and operated by Management and Training Corp, has received more than $240 million in federal contracts since 2014.
Federal investment in private prison contractors for migrant detention is increasing under the current administration. From January to May of this year, the government awarded 50% more to companies involved in the immigration removals than last year. The now infamous "Big Beautiful Bill Act" provides $45 billion for adult immigration detention capacity and family residential centers. These centers, including "Alligator Alcatraz," aim to house more than 100,000 people at any given day in detention centers, with authority to detain family units pending their removal decisions. This would be an 800% increase in detention funding compared to the previous year.
This surge in federal investment is already translating into increased detention capacity and therefore more people imprisoned. As the private sector builds more beds, ICE fills them, with more than 50,000 people currently detained, the most since 2019.
ICE is not just targeting criminals but also undocumented migrants with no criminal historywhatsoever. Under U.S. law, being undocumented is a civil violation, not a criminal offense. ICE detention facilities are not meant to function as prisons designed to punish; rather, their stated purpose is to ensure immigrants appear for their court hearings. However, according to the administration's "border czar," Tom Homan, they are working to reduce the number of required federal inspections and to lower detention standards so that more county sheriffs could detain people on behalf of ICE.
Immigrant rights advocates, along with our government's own inspectors, have raised serious concerns that detention centers run by private prison companies often resemble punitive prisons more than facilities focused on simply holding individuals. In the report "Deadly Failures: Preventable Deaths in U.S. Immigration Detention," the inspectors found what they described as racist harassment of immigrants and retaliation against detainees who filed complaints. Multiple staff made comments such as, if detainees do not like the treatment, they should not have come to our country. The death of a Cuban man last month marks the 13th death in ICE custody in the 2025 fiscal year, compared to the 12 total deaths reported by ICE in 2024.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently confirmed that the administration doubled the arrest quotas immigration officers must meet - from 1,800 to 3,000 each day. This signals that detention centers will soon be filled with migrants, many of whom have never committed a crime. In this push to meet higher quotas, the civil rights of migrants, including their fundamental right to due process, are inconvenient.
What can you do about it?
- Support Detention Watch Network's #CommunitiesNotCages campaign. Sign the petition and check out their website or follow @detentionwatch on Instagram.
- Join a local campaign. Email program@detentionwatchnetwork.org and they will connect you to local campaigns leading shut down efforts.
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