Since January, the Trump administration has dramatically escalated its immigrant deportation and detention operations, triggering widespread condemnation from human rights advocates, legal experts, and international observers. Leveraging the wartime authorities of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to bypass standard legal processes, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has sent hundreds of migrants, many without criminal records or due process, to notorious facilities like Guantanamo Bay and El Salvador’s CECOT prison. Reports indicate that detainees have been subjected to inhumane treatment and physical abuse, with some individuals misidentified as gang members based on tattoos.
Domestically, immigrants are being jammed beyond capacity into ICE facilities run by companies like GEO Group, which have been found to have deficiencies in mental health care, inadequate suicide prevention, and excessive use of force against detainees. The revelations about the conditions at these facilities underscore the harsh reality of a profit-driven immigration enforcement system.
Critics often focus on private prison companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic, but hundreds of other businesses quietly profit from ICE’s ramped up activities. Private charter airlines and transport companies earn millions from handling detainee transfers, and tech firms providing surveillance tools like face scanning and ankle monitors take a piece of ICE’s more than $9 billion annual budget. Even food service companies, tent manufacturers, healthcare contractors, telecom services, and uniform suppliers cash in. The people behind this sprawling web of contracting businesses, from small vendors to large corporations, are profiting from a system where financial incentives often overshadow humane treatment of immigrants.
Use the map below to view details on the U.S. companies with active ICE contracts. The data comes from USASpending.gov, and the amounts provided are the totals for all of the companies’ currently active contracts.
