Private prison groups are cheering for President-elect Donald Trump’s plan for a massive deportation on day one of his term, labeling it as the “unprecedented opportunity” they’ve been waiting for, HuffPost reports.
During an earnings call on Nov. 7, top-ranking private prison groups explained their excitement over a second Trump era. Members of GEO Group and CoreCivic feel the election results will increase government funding of private contracts for immigration detention, electronic tracking devices, and transportation of detainees from the United States to other countries. “The GEO Group was built for this unique moment in our company’s– country’s history, and the opportunity that it will bring,” founder and executive chairman of the board of directors for GEO Group, George Zoley, said.
Immigration deportation was a key element in Trump’s 2024 campaign, threatening mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and, in some cases, those who are here with legal protections
. During rallies, he spoke highly of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s mass deportation program and being open to inciting an 18th-century law giving him powers to enforce deportations.Allies in Trump’s corner have been openly candid about building mass deportation camps along the border, with the capacity to hold thousands of people at a time while judges process deportation orders. The concept would be a good thing for private prison owners, as stock prices have already increased.
According to Fortune, CoreCivic stock went up 29%, while GEO Group saw a larger gain at 42%. Data from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) shows that the industry has a right to celebrate the announcement. During the Trump-Pence reign, the federal government expanded the migrant detention system by more than 50%, which “overwhelmingly benefited private prison companies.” In 2019, just before Trump left the White House, the number of detained immigrants reached a peak of 55,000.
President Joe Biden seemingly followed Trump’s plan once he took over in 2021 by making an exception to migrant detention facilities while issuing an executive order to end private prison contracts with the government.
CoreCivic’s CEO Damon Hininger said during the call that he feels a sense of newness with the new Trump administration — something that the
country has yet to see. “It feels like with this election this year, we’re heading into an era that we really haven’t seen, maybe only once or twice in the company’s history, where the value proposition of the private sector for both our state partners and our federal partners are going to be not only strong today, but even stronger as we go in the next couple of years,” Hininger said.“We do think that there’s going to be an increased need for detention capacity.”
GEO Group CEO Brian Evans agrees with the thought. “We expect the incoming Trump administration to take a much more expansive approach to monitoring the several millions of individuals who are currently on the non-detained immigrant docket,” Evans explained, alongside COO Wayne Calabrese, who joined the call.
While the plan seems to be giving leaders joy, they know that the magnitude of deportation Trump is speaking of could take quite some time. “I’ve been told recently [that it will take] several weeks if not a few months to detain these people and make final arrangements for their removal,” Zoley mentioned.
Zoley failed to highlight who exactly was the source of that information.
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