Texas Prison Profits Surge as Immigration Spikes

At the Texas border, a surge in migrant encounters has led to substantial profits for prison corporations. Among them is a private prison company that owns and operates over 100 processing centers, detention centers, and prisons across the United States.

In Eagle Pass, Texas, a 13-mile drive north on Del Rio Boulevard from the razor wire-marked landscape will take you to the Eagle Pass Detention Facility. Drive two-and-a-half hours south from there and you'll find yourself at the Rio Grande Processing Center.

Both facilities—and nine others in Texas—are owned by the GEO Group Inc, a private prison that is benefiting from the unprecedented surge in migrant encounters.

Last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, federal agents encountered roughly 2.5 million migrants at the southern border. According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) data, Texas led the nation in migrant detentions over the course of the period. As of December, TRAC data indicates that Texas had the highest number of people in immigration detention per day at 14,070.

Those immigrants are often placed in detention centers owned by private companies such as the GEO Group, which receive significant government funding. For example, USASpending.gov records indicate that the federal government awarded the GEO Group a total of $603.7 million last year, with 73.7 percent ($444.95 million) of that amount coming from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Formed through the merger of the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, ICE serves as the primary investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is the second largest investigative agency within the federal government.

That escalation in border crossings and subsequent detention of those individuals at processing centers or formal detention centers coincides with a financial boon for the GEO Group, which last week reported one of its most profitable years amid the growing demand for immigration detention facilities.

The GEO Group reported total revenue of $2.41 billion in 2023, with $113.8 million in profit. Profit would have been higher but the company said it paid down some of its debt. For context, the GEO Group brought in $2.38 billion in 2022. The company also told investors it expects to bring in $2.4 billion in 2024, saying that this "assumes stable populations across our ICE Processing Centers and stable participant counts under the federal government's Intensive Supervision and Appearance Program ("ISAP") contract."

"Our company delivered strong operational and financial performance in 2023, resulting in the second-best year in our company's 40-year history," GEO Group CEO George Zoley told investors in a statement on Thursday.

Newsweek has reached out to the GEO Group by email for comment on Tuesday.

Ethical Concerns

Critics argue that the profitability of private prison corporations like the GEO Group in the wake of surging immigration encounters at the Texas border raises ethical concerns. According to an ACLU report issued in August of last year, the reliance on such corporations has intensified.

The report found that more than 90 percent of individuals in ICE detention are now housed in facilities operated by private entities, marking an increase in the use of corporations for immigration detention purposes.

It's a far cry from the Biden administration's campaign promises to end the use of private prisons for immigration detention, the ACLU noted, which it said is evident in the administration's executive order issued in January 2021 directing the Department of Justice to phase out its contracts with private prison companies but conspicuously excluded ICE detention from its mandate.

As a result, the number of immigrants detained by ICE—and consequently, the revenues of private prison companies like the GEO Group—have seen an upward trajectory.

While revenues are up, the ACLU said so are cases of poor conditions and abuses within the privately operated facilities. Instances of alleged medical neglect—including one at a GEO Group-owned processing center where an immigrant, Ernesto Rocha-Cuadra, died—and other forms of mistreatment have been documented, the ACLU said, raising human rights concerns.

A spokesperson for the GEO Group told CNN after Rocha-Cuadra's death in Louisiana in June 2023, "We are unable to provide comment regarding specific cases related to individuals in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Healthcare services at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center are provided directly by the federal government through the ICE Health Services Corps."

The expansion of immigration detention under the Trump administration, which saw a 50 percent increase in the system's capacity through contracts that often guaranteed minimum payments to private contractors, set a precedent that the Biden administration has yet to reverse, the ACLU said, which has perpetuated and exacerbated the reliance on private entities for detention services.

What's Going To Happen?

In January, the number of crossings on the southwest land border in Texas was significantly lower than in previous months, according to CBP data. There were 68,260 crossings in January, compared to 149,806 in December, 119,628 in October, and 111,129 in November.

Still, the overall escalating number of border crossings has prompted renewed calls for immigration reform in the United States. But a bipartisan agreement on the issue may not materialize anytime soon.

A $118 billion border bill, issued earlier this month amid contentious negotiations, aims to address the challenges in the U.S.-Mexico border, proposing an increase in ICE detention capacity from 34,000 to 50,000 and allocating $20 billion towards immigration enforcement. The legislation also seeks to distribute foreign aid, including $14 billion to Israel, $60 billion for Ukraine, and funds to Indo-Pacific nations as well as Gaza and the West Bank.

Designed to strike a balance between border enforcement favored by Republicans and immigration reform advocated by Democrats, the bill's passage requires bipartisan support—an outcome that seems increasingly uncertain. Initial responses from Congress that Newsweek previously reported on reveal deep divisions.

At least 11 Senate Republicans have publicly opposed the bill, criticizing it for inadequately addressing border security. Similarly, Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the proposal as "worse than we expected," reflecting the challenges it faces in the House.

Critics from the GOP, representing a wide spectrum of states, have voiced their concerns loudly. Senators from border states like Ted Cruz of Texas, along with others like Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rand Paul of Kentucky, have variously labeled the bill an "open borders bill," "anti-American," and a "huge middle finger to working people."