Despite Increased Profits, Private Prison Companies Want to Cage Even More People [View all]

https://theappeal.org/ice-geo-group-corecivic-profits/

CoreCivic’s revenue from contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) skyrocketed in 2025, but some participants on today’s quarterly earnings call expressed concerns that ICE had not detained as many immigrants as investors hoped.

“One of the big questions…has been the pace of detention by ICE, that it’s been below what investors thought [it] was going to be,” one caller said. “I think people thought we’d be at that 100,000 level. We’re at a little over 70,000.”

ICE’s detained population is at its highest level since the agency’s creation in 2003. The majority are incarcerated in for-profit prisons, which has meant millions of dollars in revenue for the private prison industry. Leading for-profit prison companies, including CoreCivic and GEO Group, donated about half a million dollars to Republican members of Congress currently in office, and $57,000 to Democratic congressmembers, from 2021 through 2025, according to an investigation by The Appeal.

During the last three months of 2025, CoreCivic’s revenue from ICE more than doubled from the previous year, from $244.7 million compared to $120.3 million.

The company’s profits spiked to $116.5 million in 2025, an almost 70 percent increase from the previous year.

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