ICE detention funding surge and private contractor revenue (2025-2026)

Case

Congress gave ICE $45 billion for detention capacity in July 2025, against an annual detention appropriation of about $3.8 billion in fiscal 2025, and added over $31 billion more for enforcement functions in June 2026. ICE's daily detained population rose 71% (39,314 to 67,180) between January 2025 and July 2026, with facilities obtained through contracts with private operators, state and local governments and Marshals Service riders. GEO Group and CoreCivic reported sharply higher second-quarter 2026 revenue, and the two companies and their executives gave millions to Trump-aligned committees. GAO found ICE wasted funds by expanding detention without a strategic plan; the sources here do not show that donations drove contract awards.

Congress's funding for ICE detention
GAO reports that ICE's fiscal year 2025 annual appropriation for detention (Custody Operations) was around $3.8 billion.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21, July 2025) gave ICE $45 billion for detention capacity through fiscal year 2029. It also gave ICE nearly $30 billion, available through Sept. 30, 2029, for enforcement uses such as hiring and training, transportation, IT and facility upgrades.
The Secure America Act (June 2026, Public Law 119-98) gave ICE over $31 billion through fiscal year 2029 for activities such as mission support, including immigration enforcement functions. GAO notes the law does not specifically name custody operations or detention.
NPR reported in January 2026 that ICE's budget, which had hovered around $10 billion for years, spiked after the 2025 law. It quoted Brennan Center analyst Lauren-Brooke Eisen saying that with the new bill and other appropriations, ICE's budget is larger than the annual budget of all other federal law enforcement agencies combined.

Growth in detention
ICE's average daily detained population rose from 39,314 on Jan. 20, 2025 to 67,180 on July 30, 2026, an increase of 71%, according to ICE data cited by GAO.
The number of authorized ICE detention facilities roughly doubled, from 134 on Jan. 20, 2025 to 272 on July 23, 2026. GAO says ICE typically obtains facilities through contracts with private detention companies, intergovernmental service agreements with state and local governments, and riders on U.S. Marshals Service agreements.
GAO found ICE's stated bed-space goals inconsistent: about 48,000 beds in January 2025; DHS said in July 2025 that the new funding would add about 80,000 beds; ICE warehouse documents in February 2026 cited a target of 92,600 beds; and ICE officials said in June 2026 that the administration's goal was 100,000 beds, which was not reflected in ICE documents.

What GAO found about spending (Sept. 2026)
GAO found that since January 2025 ICE invested in six new detention expansion initiatives without a comprehensive strategic plan, and that as of July 2026 it had scaled back four of them, resulting in wasted or potentially wasted resources.
ICE reported buying 11 warehouses for about $1.07 billion between January and April 2026. In June 2026 the DHS Secretary said the department was re-evaluating the model because it had not done appropriate due diligence and planning, and ICE officials said they were working to sell seven of the 11, bought for $707 million. GAO reports $7.7 million in nonrecoverable purchase costs and about $12.8 million spent by August 2026 on utilities, security and other services at those seven.
In July 2026 ICE bought two existing detention facilities for about $1.5 billion. GAO says ICE had by then purchased over $2.5 billion in warehouses and detention facilities without evaluating long-term ownership costs; its acquisition plan projects only three years of operating costs, while the new funding is available only through fiscal year 2029.
FEMA awarded Florida $608.4 million on Sept. 30, 2025 under a detention support grant for the state-run Florida Soft-Sided Facility ("Alligator Alcatraz"), which opened with no ICE contract or agreement. The grant program authorizes a bed rate of $249 per day, about 171% above ICE's fiscal 2026 median of $92. GAO reports the median rate at eight Bureau of Prisons facilities ICE uses was $182.
GAO recommended that ICE develop a comprehensive strategic plan for detention expansion. DHS agreed, but ICE does not expect to finish the plan until Aug. 31, 2027; GAO said that, given the size of the funding, more timely completion may be warranted.

Private contractor revenue (second quarter 2026)
GEO Group reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $732.1 million, up 15% from $636.2 million a year earlier, and net income attributable to GEO of $47.5 million, up 63% from $29.1 million. First-half revenue was $1.44 billion versus $1.24 billion. GEO said the growth reflects contracts entered into during 2025.
GEO's chairman and CEO George Zoley said 2025 was the most successful period for new business wins in the company's history. GEO's full-year 2026 guidance is revenue of $2.95 to $3.05 billion and net income of $168 to $175 million.
GEO signed five-year ICE contracts to reactivate two facilities: Big Horn in Hudson, Colorado (1,188 beds, effective July 9, 2026, about $85 million in first-full-year revenue) and Rivers in Winton, North Carolina (1,320 beds, effective Aug. 1, 2026, about $80 million). Under both, ICE reimburses GEO's capital expenditures to reactivate the facilities and funds start-up expenses.
CoreCivic reported second-quarter 2026 total revenue of $684.9 million, up 27.3%, and net income of $37.1 million, down 3.6% (from $38.5 million). The company attributed the increase in federal revenue mainly to higher occupancy at facilities with ICE contracts and to per diem increases.
NOTUS, citing USAspending.gov, reported that CoreCivic had received more than $544 million for detention and reentry services since Trump's inauguration (a figure as of that article, not current). It also reported that GEO's 2025 federal lobbying spending was in line with recent years.

Political money from the two largest operators
CoreCivic reported in a lobbying disclosure that it gave $500,000 to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee in December 2024. ABC News noted that both CoreCivic and GEO gave to Trump's 2016 inaugural committee through subsidiaries, $250,000 each.
CREW's analysis of FEC data found that CoreCivic, GEO Group, their PACs, subsidiaries and top executives gave a combined $2,779,000 to Trump's 2024 campaign, inaugural committee and related fundraising entities, including $500,000 each from CoreCivic and GEO's PAC to the inaugural committee.

Baseline: ICE detention before the 2025 surge
A November 2020 Center for American Progress report by law professor Peter Markowitz put ICE's 2020 budget at $8.3 billion, more than 2,300% above the former INS's $349 million in 1980. It put the daily detained population at about 2,000 in 1985 and a record 52,000 in 2019.

Perspectives

Official position — ICE and DHS (as reported by GAO)
DHS says the expansion carries out the January 2025 executive order directing it to detain people apprehended for immigration violations, to the extent the law permits, and to put all available resources toward ICE detention. ICE officials told GAO that buying existing facilities helps the agency maintain operations in geographically important regions, gives it greater control of its detention infrastructure, and limits state and local governments' ability to restrict detention operations. DHS agreed with GAO's recommendation to write a strategic plan.

Defender — GEO Group management
GEO describes its results as the product of new contracts it won and is bringing into operation, calling 2025 its most successful year for new business, and presents its role as providing contracted support services for processing centers and secure facilities on terms ICE agreed to, including ICE reimbursing the cost of reactivating idle facilities.

Critic — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
CREW argues the $45 billion detention appropriation sets up a windfall for private contractors that donated heavily to Trump. It says about 90% of immigration detention is run by private for-profit corporations and that CoreCivic and GEO could quickly reopen idle facilities and build new ones. CREW calls for intensive oversight of the facilities the money funds. These are CREW's claims; its piece shows donations and contract growth but does not document a link between them.

Expert view — Peter L. Markowitz, Cardozo School of Law (Center for American Progress, 2020)
Markowitz argued in 2020 that the unprecedented scale of immigration detention is driven more by the financial interests of the private prison industry and of the states and localities that rent out jails than by any legitimate policy interest. He also argued that detention has not improved court appearance: the rate of nonappearance in immigration court in 2018 was the same 25% as in 1996. This is a pre-2025 policy argument resting on a 2018 Migration Policy Institute article it cites, not a finding about the 2025-2026 expansion.

Editorial read — The Author (site author), thesis
The Author's reading: Congress gave ICE tens of billions of dollars for detention and enforcement, and ICE spent heavily before it had settled how many beds it needed, where, or at what long-term cost. Its own comprehensive plan is not due until after the midpoint of the term, and the money expires in fiscal 2029. The record shows a rush to spend: over $2.5 billion in property bought without an ownership-cost analysis, and initiatives scaled back after money was committed. This is interpretation. GAO documents the planning gaps and tens of millions of dollars in confirmed waste, and it notes similar tensions between speed and planning in earlier large funding surges. It does not find bad faith, and the sources here do not show that donations drove any contract award.

Research notes
Open leads: (1) contract-level ICE awards to GEO Group and CoreCivic from USAspending.gov, to replace the secondary CoreCivic total; (2) the share of each company's revenue that comes from ICE, from their 10-Q filings; (3) the Secure America Act text, to see how much of the $31 billion is available for detention; (4) any evidence for or against a link between the donations and specific contract awards (none is documented in the sources used here); (5) the 2020 Markowitz baseline should be replaced with current budget tables once the detention line is sourced from DHS budget documents.

Note
The sources document spending, contract revenue and political donations but do not establish that donations influenced contract awards; DHS says expansion carries out the president's January 2025 order to detain people apprehended for immigration violations, and ICE says buying facilities preserves its operations.

Sources
[1] GAO-26-108663, Immigration Detention: Urgent Planning Needed to Avoid Further Waste of Taxpayer Dollars (https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108663) · 2026-09-24
[2] GEO Group second-quarter 2026 results (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1) (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000923796/000119312526336562/d118675dex991.htm) · 2026-08-06
[3] CoreCivic second-quarter 2026 financial results (investor relations release) (https://ir.corecivic.com/news-releases/news-release-details/corecivic-reports-second-quarter-2026-financial-results) · 2026-08
[4] Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) (https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/trumps-budget-bill-benefits-private-immigration-detention-companies-that-donated-to-trump/) · 2025-07
[5] ABC News (syndicated copy) (https://whio.com/news/national/private-prison-firm/JDN6UXHWDBPV3OL4UTOG7CE5A4) · 2025-01
[6] NOTUS (https://www.notus.org/money/private-prisons-lobbying-corecivic-geo-group-immigration-detention)
[7] NPR (https://www.npr.org/2026/01/21/nx-s1-5674887/ice-budget-funding-congress-trump) · 2026-01-21
[8] Center for American Progress, "A New Paradigm for Humane and Effective Immigration Enforcement" (Peter L. Markowitz) (https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/ImmigrationParadigm-report.pdf) · 2020-11

Connections

Same context — "Alligator Alcatraz": Florida's state-run detention site and the FEMA money behind it (2025-2026)
That entry covers federal detention funding and contractor revenue and carries one point on the FEMA grant; this entry covers the Everglades site itself, its cost, reimbursement, litigation, closure and conditions.

Same context — CISA downsizing and the end of federal funding for state cyber information-sharing (2025-2026)
Same budget period: a $10 million cut to state cyber threat-sharing alongside a $75 billion ICE supplement (separate decisions, not a transfer).

Same context — DHS "hunt them down" messaging and enforcement harms to U.S. citizens
The same enforcement build-up: this entry covers the money and detention capacity, that one covers the messaging and harms to U.S. citizens.

Same context — DHS's $464 million no-bid aircraft purchase from donor-linked Daedalus Aviation, including five planes bought hours before Noem left (2025-2026)
Both concern the surge in immigration-enforcement funding and where it went: the aircraft were bought with enforcement money for deportation flights, and the detention entry covers the same funding flowing to private contractors.

Related — DOGE 'Defend the Spend': delayed and frozen funding to states
Contrasting federal money flows: grants to states and nonprofits were frozen or terminated while ICE detention funding rose sharply.

Shared mechanism — Flock Safety and the expansion of license-plate surveillance to immigration enforcement
Both show private companies profiting from immigration enforcement through government contracts.

Same context — ICE agent conduct, vetting and accountability during the 2025-2026 hiring surge
Same ICE expansion funded by Congress; that entry covers detention funding and contractors, this one an agent-conduct incident, and no source ties Gonzalez to specific funding.

Same context — Marble Hill ICE shooting and removal of Oscar Belgal from hospital (Oct. 2026)
Same enforcement build-up: that entry covers the funding and detention capacity, this one a field operation during the surge; no source ties this operation to specific funds.

Shared mechanism — US-Israel law-enforcement channels: ICE spyware and forensics contracts and police exchange programs
Both document ICE procurement as the channel through which outside companies are paid.

Related — Waste and vanity spending: documented costs of White House projects, renamings, travel and agency cuts (2025-2026)
GAO's finding of wasted ICE detention-expansion spending is the main DHS waste record; the shock-glove purchase sits on top of that funding.