ICE’s Largest Prison Contractors Hail ‘New Growth Opportunities’ as Revenue Reaches All-Time High
Two of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) biggest contractors for building and managing detention centers have posted record revenue in 2025, as companies are expanding their facilities nationwide to hold more immigrants apprehended by the Trump Administration.
GEO Group, which operates 19 facilities for ICE around the country, reported $2.6 billion in total revenue in 2025, up 6% from $2.43 billion in 2024. CoreCivic, which owns and operates at least ten ICE detention facilities, reported $2.2 billion in total revenue in 2025, up 13% from $1.96 billion in 2024.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]During their earnings calls, both companies hailed the rapid expansion of their facilities, marking it a “significant growth opportunity,” and said they are working to reactivate facilities that were previously phased out under the Biden Administration to meet ICE’s increasing detention demands. The two companies have told ICE that, together, they can hold an additional population of 19,000 if needed.
Asked by one caller about how he views the current rate of ICE detentions—which, at fewer than 100,000 immigrants a day, the caller described as “below what investors thought [it] was going to be”— CEO of CoreCivic Patrick Swindle responded by assuring investors that the immigration crackdown will pick up pace.
“When you’re looking at the way that ICE approaches enforcement action, nothing occurs immediately,” Swindle said. “So, as we think about timing, it does take time because it is a very complex ecosystem, and as that ecosystem grows, it’s gonna result in additional bed demand.”
In addition to the expansion of its immigrant detention facilities, GEO Group also saw an increase in ICE’s use of its surveillance devices, which the agency uses to monitor some immigrants as an alternative to detention. During the call, incoming GEO Group CEO George Zoley said the number of participants on GPS ankle monitors has increased from approximately 17,000 in early 2025 to more than 42,000 today.
According to Zoley, ICE is currently holding approximately 70,000 immigrants in 225 separate jails or detention centers, nearly double the number of immigrants detained and the number of available facilities from last year.
The Washington Post reported that, thanks to an unprecedented $45 billion budget approved by Congress, ICE intends to expand immigrant detention to parts of the country where none are currently located while building new detention facilities in populous states like California and Texas. The plan would double the agency’s number of large-scale, mega-detention centers—the kind that are contracted out to GEO Group and CoreCivic—as well as building makeshift “soft-sided” structures that can be built in a few weeks.
One of the plans that ICE is pursuing in this effort to build massive detention facilities is acquiring warehouses and turning them into jails, despite protests in local communities. GEO Group said it is “cautiously participating in this process,” despite having little experience in renovating warehouses.
“We’ve only had one experience in renovating a warehouse, and that occurred maybe 30 years ago. So it’s more complicated than you may think,” Zoley said during the earnings call.
“As a 40-year partner to ICE, we expect to be a part of this solution,” he added.
For-profit detention centers hold the overwhelming majority of immigrants who are detained by ICE, according to data from TRAC Immigration. They have also been the site of most of the fatalities in federal immigrant detention that have occurred in recent months: Of the 38 people who died in ICE custody from January 2025 to now, 71 percent were held in for-profit facilities, according to data collected by independent journalist Andrew Free.