Companies aiding Trump's immigration crackdown see ‘extraordinary' revenues

The Guardian

3 days ago

The tech, surveillance and private prison providers arming Donald Trump's massive expansion and weaponization of immigration enforcement are running a victory lap after reporting their latest financial results.
Palantir, the tech firm, and Geo Group and CoreCivic, the private prison and surveillance companies, said this week that they brought in more money than Wall Street expected them to, thanks to the administration's crackdown on immigrants.
'Well, as usual, I've been cautioned to be a little modest about our bombastic numbers,' said Alex Karp, the Palantir chief executive, in an investor call earlier this week. Then he crowed about the company's 'extraordinary numbers' and his 'enormous pride' in its success.
Private prison company executives, during their respective calls, could barely contain their excitement, flagging to investors opportunities for 'unprecedented growth' in the realm of immigration detention.
Palantir saw 53% growth in revenue from US government contracts in the second quarter of 2025 compared with the same period the year prior and surpassed $1bn in total quarterly revenue for the first time. Analysts had expected the company to bring in $939.4m in revenue.
The company, which connects and analyzes disparate sets of data to enable its customers to build products with that information, brings in the majority of its revenue from government contracts. Its biggest US customer is the Department of Defense, where the US army, which announced a $10bn agreement with Palantir last week, is housed. On the immigration side, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has deepened its partnership with Palantir since the start of the Trump administration, which it's been working with since 2011. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the agency primarily engaged in arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants, most recently announced a $30m contract with Palantir to build a database that makes its deportation and detention machine more efficient.
'Palantir gets attacked just because we help make this country even better, because we support the values, because we defend it,' Karp said. 'And us being able to win while having an opinion does have an impact on the world, if only because the people who think we are wrong are not good, have to be a little jealous and suffer.'
While Palantir is making it easier to deport immigrants, private prison corporations GeoGroup and CoreCivic are bringing in more money than expected helping detain them. GeoGroup reported $636.2m in revenue this quarter, beating analyst predictions of $623.4m, while CoreCivic announced $538.2m in the second quarter of this year, a 9.8% increase from last year's second quarter. George Zoley, the GeoGroup company chief executive, said its detention facilities are fuller than they've ever been, with Ice using 20,000 beds across 21 GeoGroup detention centers, about one-third of the estimated 57,000 beds in Ice detention centers across the country. GeoGroup executives also said in the call they have begun exploring detention centers at US military sites, one of the many 'unprecedented growth opportunities' Zoley spoke of during the call.
While there has been a big boost to GeoGroup's detention business, its surveillance subsidiary is not yet seeing the massive growth company executives predicted earlier this year.
Executives said they expected the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) – an immigrant monitoring initiative run by the company's subsidiary BI Inc for 20 years – would expand beyond its previous peak of 370,000 immigrants being monitored. The number of immigrants who are currently being surveilled by Ice has hovered around 183,000 for the past few months.
'[ICE hasn't] communicated at this time the expansion of ISAP,' Zoley said on the investor call. 'Their focus is intensely on scaling up the detention capacity.'
That said, the company expects ISAP numbers to start increasing next year once 'detention capacity is maximized'. The Trump administration has signaled a desire to increase the number of immigrants surveilled by ankle monitors. Many immigrants have described ISAP surveillance as intrusive, at times physically painful and inefficient.
In the call with investors, CoreCivic executives revealed they have offered Ice around 30,000 beds to detain immigrants throughout the company's nationwide network.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act legislation was passed by Congress and signed by Trump last month, providing DHS a massive influx of cash. Ice was given $45bn to expand its detention network.
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Ice currently has funds for around 41,500 beds but is currently detaining around 57,000 people throughout its detention network. With the incoming influx of cash, the agency will have the funds to likely detain thousands upon thousands more – and private prison contractors are ready.
'Our business is perfectly aligned with the demands of this moment,' said Damon T Hininger, the CEO of CoreCivic, during Thursday's call with investors. 'We are in an unprecedented environment, with rapid increases in federal detention populations nationwide and a continuing need for solutions we provide.'
As the office of management and budget readies the finances from the spending package, private prison companies have wasted no time in selling their services to immigration officials.
'As we know, budgets are moral documents, and last month Congress decided to fully fund cruelty aimed at immigrant communities at the expense of vital programs that serve all Americans,' said Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director for the Detention Watch Network. 'Private prison companies have been giddy since last November about the prospect of making money at the expense of all of us.'
Since Trump took office again this year, CoreCivic has modified, extended or signed new contracts to detain immigrants at eight different facilities, according to company financial disclosures. Geo Group has done the same with five different facilities.
The earning calls from the two companies come as immigrant rights organizations and human rights groups criticize conditions inside immigration jails nationwide.
Setareh added that private prison companies' profits come from 'the destruction of human lives as directed by the Trump administration and made possible by the majority Congress'.
A CoreCivic facility in New Mexico where immigrants and federal prisoners are detained, the Cibola correctional facility, is currently under investigation by the FBI for an 'epidemic' of drug trafficking, as the Guardian recently revealed. At least 15 people have died inside that facility since 2018.
Last September, the company pitched Cibola to Ice as an ideal place to detain more immigrants.