The U.S. immigration detention system, already one of the largest in the world, is about to get much bigger. As the Trump administration has set its sights on ramping up mass deportations, an ever-expanding system of detention centers has grown in its wake.
Here’s the disturbing truth: much of this detention system isn’t being run by the government. It’s run by private prison companies, like Geo Group and CoreCivic. These private companies aren't just running detention centers; they are running a business of human misery.. collecting taxpayer dollars for each immigrant held behind their fences, while those trapped inside are subjected to conditions that have been described as nothing short of inhumane.
The growing business of detaining immigrants is more than just a policy issue; it’s a multibillion-dollar industry and a human rights issue. These private companies are in bed with the Trump administration, using lobbying, political donations, and backroom deals to secure contracts that guarantee them massive profits.
The worst part? The people in these centers, most of whom committed no crime, are caught in the middle of this greedy machine.
The Growing Business of Immigration Detention
Picture this: thousands of families, mothers with their children, fathers separated from their loved ones, all held in cramped, overcrowded facilities, surrounded by steel walls, locked away with little more than the hope of release and the terrifying uncertainty of deportation looming overhead.
This is not a far-off scene, no, it’s a reality for over 47,000 detainees in 2025, held in a system designed to make billions for the companies running it.
The expansion of immigration detention under Trump isn’t about border security at all. It’s about business and Geo Group and CoreCivic are cashing in. These are private prison companies that own private prisons and bring in money from not only I.C.E, but The Dept. of Corrections, too. Over 90% of ICE detention centers are owned and operated by private, for-profit companies like the two above.
/ Interestingly, one of the largest shareholders for Geo Group is BlackRock, yes, the same company that tried to buy the Panama Canal for $23 billion dollars. I feel like we aren’t talking about them enough. /
In 2025 alone, Geo Group was awarded an additional $1 billion contract to operate two new ICE detention centers in New Jersey and Michigan. This is big money, with profits tied directly to the number of immigrants detained, each new bed turning into more dollars. As of today, Geo Group has 20 detention facilities with nearly 30,000 beds. On average, these facilities make $110 - 200.00 USD per detainee/day. Reportedly, several facilities are operating above capacity, up to 109%.
For Geo Group, every new detained immigrant is a payday. The company’s stock price has skyrocketed by 116% since Trump took office, showing just how profitable it is to hold people captive for months, sometimes years, in squalid conditions.
Inside the Walls: The Inhumane Machinery of Detention
Step inside one of America’s immigration detention centers in 2025, and you’ll find yourself in a system that profits from misery. Concrete walls. Flickering fluorescent lights. A silence that hums with desperation. These are not places of rehabilitation or care; they are holding pens for people who have committed no crime but dared to seek safety.
And now, people are dying inside.
Since President Trump returned to office, at least seven migrants have died in ICE custody in just the first 100 days.. an alarming escalation even by the agency’s troubled standards. Among them: a Haitian woman, a Ukrainian man, a Colombian, a Honduran, an Ethiopian, and others. Each death a name. Each name a story. Each story a policy failure with a price tag written in blood.
One of the most devastating stories is that of Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old Haitian woman. She entered the U.S. legally on a tourist visa, seeking a better life. Instead, she was arrested in the U.S. Virgin Islands and shuffled from one ICE facility to another like cargo. When she arrived at the Broward Transitional Center in Florida, she began experiencing chest pain. Detainees say she begged for help for hours. Guards gave her pain relievers. She collapsed and died later that day.
“She should never have been in that place,” said Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who visited the facility after Blaise’s death. “What I saw there was heartbreaking.”
And then there was Maksym Chernyak, a 44-year-old man from Ukraine who died inside the Krome Detention Center in Miami. He had entered the country legally under a humanitarian parole program. He too complained of chest pain. He was given Tylenol. Guards ignored the worsening symptoms until it was too late. A blood clot from an undiagnosed stroke had reached his lungs. He died in his sleep.
“They saw his condition. They ignored him. If he hadn’t been put in Krome, I believe he would still be alive.”
The deaths keep coming. Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, an Ethiopian man, died at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona a facility notorious for past abuses. Three men have died in ICE custody in the span of just over a month, marking the highest rate of deaths under any modern presidency this early in a term.
In Miami’s Krome facility, dozens of men were filmed pleading for help, crammed into a windowless room with no access to bathrooms or phones. They were detained without charges, denied showers, and fed nothing but peanut butter sandwiches.
“We are practically kidnapped,” said Osiris Vázquez, one of the men. “We don’t want likes. We want help. Please.”
These aren’t detention centers. They’re warehouses for human beings, managed by corporations that profit from suffering and funded with your tax dollars.
Even after repeated investigations, lawsuits, and congressional hearings, the machine keeps turning. The detainees change. The names change. The deaths remain and as the headlines fade, those left behind continue to sleep on concrete, whispering prayers to ceilings that never answer.
Bought and Paid For
If you want to understand why the machine keeps turning, follow the money.
In the 2024 election cycle, GEO Group poured over $3.7 million into political contributions. Over 91% of that went to Republican candidates and committees, including maximum-allowed donations to Donald Trump’s campaign. It wasn’t charity, it was investment. A down payment on policies that would guarantee ICE contracts, expand bed counts, and keep detention centers packed to the brim.
And they got what they paid for.
Trump’s 2025 budget proposal includes a staggering $4.1 billion for ICE Custody Operations $3.1 billion of which is specifically earmarked for 50,000 detention beds, up 16,000 from the previous baseline.
Another $822.7 million is set aside to fund removal operations aimed at deporting over 1.3 million people.
The same people funneled into GEO and CoreCivic's facilities. The same people whose pain is monetized and whose silence is enforced behind locked doors.
This isn’t just influence. It’s policy laundering. And the corporations writing the checks know exactly what they’re buying.
The Business of Dehumanization
This system is engineered to run lean but not in a way that reflects efficiency. Detention centers slash staffing to the bone, leaving facilities severely understaffed. Detainees report going days without medical attention, sometimes screaming for help that never comes.
According to watchdog reports and government audits, some ICE contractors feed detainees meals that cost less than $1.50 each, composed of cheap processed items that are frequently undercooked, spoiled, or nutritionally void.
Moldy bread. Lukewarm beans. Unidentifiable meat.
Even water access has been just as insufficient at times. Medical care is outsourced to third-party companies that hire underqualified, low-paid staff. A recent lawsuit revealed that one major detention center had only one nurse per 400 detainees and this was a 2024 lawsuit. We should have been talking about this long before.
And yet the contracts keep growing. ICE is pushing to expand its detention bed capacity beyond 50,000, and the Department of Homeland Security is funneling billions into this system. Meanwhile, proven and cost-effective alternatives like case management programs and alternatives to detention cost just a fraction and have higher success rates but they don’t enrich shareholders.
To the corporations behind this system, the suffering isn’t a flaw in the plan. It is the plan.
Every day, people vanish behind barbed wire. They are not convicted of crimes. Many have legal visas or asylum claims but the political appetite for punishment has turned immigration into a business and migrants into inventory.
This is not law enforcement. This is not national security. This is what happens when cruelty is contracted out and pain becomes profit.
The detention machine keeps turning. Unless we break it. I will continue to follow these stories, to follow the money, and investigate the machine of detention centers. If you learned something from this article, feel free to subscribe. A free subscription keeps you in the loop, a paid subscription keeps me going so I can hold the powers that be accountable. Thank you for being here.
Call it what it is, they are concentration camps
I don’t understand how this isn’t a crime and why no one is bringing these companies and admin down.