Private Prisons Used by ICE Spend Big on Trump, Other Republicans
Executives at the nation’s two largest private prison companies have been donating large sums to President Donald Trump and Republican candidates ahead of the November elections.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has committed to ending the use of private prisons for detention after facing pressure from Bernie Sanders and other liberals.
Biden’s pledge would be a major change from when he was vice president. President Barack Obama’s administration opened family detention centers in Texas operated by both companies and deported more than 3 million people.
Together, CoreCivic and GEO Group made about $1.3 billion last year in contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Each company relies on ICE for around 30 percent of its revenue.
GEO and CoreCivic recently agreed to long-term contracts with the Trump administration for several immigration detention centers in Texas and California. Those agreements would be difficult to reverse if Biden wins.
They are also spending heavily to help Republicans win.
George Zoley, GEO Group’s founder and CEO, has given $514,800 to Republicans and just $10,000 to Democrats during the current election cycle, campaign finance records show.
According to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, people and groups linked to GEO have given more than $1.7 million, mostly to Republicans.
CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger has donated $26,300 during this election to Republicans.
People and groups linked to CoreCivic have given $228,000 so far, primarily to the GOP.
“Any questions or inferences about whether or not CoreCivic prefers the Republican Party, because it is better for our business, are misleading and portrays our company in a false light,” Ryan Gustin, a spokesman for the company, said.
GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez said any political contributions “should not be construed as an endorsement of all policies or positions adopted by any individual candidate.”
“The services we provide today are in no way different from the high quality, professional services we provided for eight years under President Obama’s administration,” Paez said.
Speaking to investors last week, Zoley predicted that GEO’s stock — which has plummeted this year after surging at the start of Trump’s term — would bounce back following the November election.
GEO Group says Zoley was not predicting a specific winner, but rather that the election would give the company and investors certainty as to the government’s direction.
CoreCivic and GEO told shareholders last week that they have renewed 10-year contracts for three detention centers in Texas, one in Houston and the others outside Austin and San Antonio.
Both companies previously reached agreements in December to keep open detention centers in California and for GEO Group to open three new immigration jails.
In both states, ICE and the companies sidestepped local opposition, including a California law banning new private prisons.
The California agreements were reached days before the effective date of the law, which GEO and the Trump administration are now challenging in court.
ICE did not respond to requests for comment.
Most of the U.S. government’s 200 immigration detention centers are run by private contractors holding asylum seekers and other immigrants accused of administrative violations or awaiting deportation.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, private prison companies operate about 80 percent of beds in the immigration system. GEO Group and CoreCivic are the two biggest contractors.
The private immigration system has grown under presidents of both parties over the last four decades. But as Democrats have largely moved away from supporting private prisons, the industry has aligned itself more with Republicans.
GEO Group officials gave six-figure donations to Trump’s election campaign and inaugural committee and have spent millions on lobbying the administration.
CoreCivic and GEO stocks surged around Trump’s inauguration based on expectations that his administration would ramp up illegal immigrant detention.
ICE was detaining a record 50,000 immigrants for much of last year. Trump also rescinded an Obama-era plan to phase out the use of private prisons.
But the stocks of both companies have lost two-thirds of their value since 2017.
A divestment campaign led by activists pushed six major banks last year to stop lending to the companies. And after hitting record highs, ICE’s detainee population has fallen to just over 20,000.
But Joe Gomes, an analyst at Noble Capital Markets, said both companies were still critical to federal and state governments that don’t have the capacity to run detention centers themselves. The companies’ contracts with the federal government also generally pay minimum amounts.
“The actual history is different than what people’s perceptions would be,” Gomes said. “Under the Obama administration, both CoreCivic and GEO did fine.”
The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.
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