Private Prisons and ICE Detention

What Are Private Prisons?

What Inspectors Found at Torrance County

In February 2022, the Homeland Security inspector general made an unannounced visit to the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, New Mexico, a detention center CoreCivic owns and runs for ICE. Inspectors checked all 157 cells where detainees lived and found plumbing failures in 83 of them, about half: toilets and sinks that were clogged, broken, or running nonstop, along with mold and water leaks (DHS Office of Inspector General).

With sinks broken and water fountains closed, detainees drew water from a faucet meant for filling mop buckets. Surveillance video showed them washing their faces in the mop sink and filling a bowl there to get water. The facility was also short of the staff its contract required.

The conditions were bad enough that the inspector general issued an emergency alert in March 2022 and recommended moving every detainee out until the facility fixed its staffing and living conditions. Over the same period, ICE was paying Torrance about $2 million a month for a guaranteed minimum of 714 detainees. By late 2021, the facility held roughly a quarter of that.

How the Per-Diem Model Works

A private prison gets paid by the head, by the day. The contract sets a per-diem rate, a flat amount for every person held for every 24 hours, so more people held for longer means more revenue. That incentive is written into the contract itself, and neither the companies nor their critics dispute it.

Two companies dominate the business. GEO Group runs 19 detention facilities for ICE (TIME), and its revenue rose 6% in 2025. CoreCivic’s rose 13%. Both companies have described the expansion of ICE detention as a “significant growth opportunity.”

Why Taxpayers Pay for Empty Beds

Many contracts protect the company from its own empty beds. An occupancy guarantee, also called a lockup quota, promises to pay for a minimum number of beds even when fewer people are held. In the Public Interest reviewed 62 private prison contracts and found that 65% carried one, set between 80% and 100% occupancy, most often 90% (In the Public Interest). Critics call the empty-bed payments a “low-crime tax,” because the public pays more when fewer people are locked up.

ICE’s guaranteed minimums add up across the whole system, not only at Torrance.

A guarantee turns a per-diem contract into something closer to a subscription. The company is paid for capacity, not use, so a drop in detention does not cut the bill the way it should.

Why Immigration Detention Is the Growth Engine

Private companies hold a small share of prisoners and nearly all of ICE’s detainees. The two numbers come from different systems and slightly different definitions, and the gap between them is where the business has grown.

On July 11, 2026, 70.6% of the people in ICE detention had no criminal conviction (TRAC). Reformers spent years pushing private operators out of federal prisons, while immigration detention grew into a mostly private system with far less attention. Private prisons are the business side of mass incarceration, and immigration detention is now where that system grows.

The Donations, the Lobbying, and the Revolving Door

The companies also spend money on the politics that decides how much detention happens. The record shows who gave, who moved between jobs, and what passed. It does not show that the donations bought any single decision.

1. The contracts Per-diem payments from ICE Paid to GEO Group and CoreCivic for every bed filled or guaranteed ↓ $2.8M given to the 2024 Trump campaign and inaugural
2. The donations Company PACs, subsidiaries, and executives Each company PAC gave $500,000 to the inaugural committee ↓ Officials move between ICE, GEO, and government
3. The revolving door Officials who worked for GEO Daniel Bible became a GEO executive vice president days before the 2024 election; Pam Bondi, now Attorney General, lobbied for GEO at Ballard Partners ↓ July 2025: Congress passes the budget law
4. The outcome $45 billion for ICE detention through 2029 A 308% annual increase over ICE's 2024 detention budget

Sources: CREW (July 2025); Truthout, citing lobbying disclosures and POGO (April 2025); American Immigration Council.

The door turns both ways. Julie Myers Wood, who led ICE from 2006 to 2008, has sat on GEO’s board since 2018, and Matthew Albence, a longtime ICE official, joined GEO in 2022 (Truthout). Each move is legal. Together they show an industry with people on both sides of the contracts it depends on.

Are Private Prisons Cheaper or Safer?

Private prisons were sold on a promise that a company could run a prison for less and just as well. In 2016, the Justice Department’s inspector general compared 14 federal contract prisons with 14 similar federal prisons over four years. The contract prisons had more incidents per person in most categories.

The inspector general noted it could not rule out differences in the people each prison held or where the prisons were located. The Justice Department cited the findings when it moved to phase out its contracts weeks later.

Federal Policy Swings on Private Prisons

Federal policy on private prisons has flipped with each administration since 2016: a phase-out order in 2016, its reversal in 2017, a narrower ban in 2021 that skipped immigration detention, the ban’s repeal in 2025, and ICE’s first purchases of private facilities in 2026.

1. 2016 Justice Department moves to phase out private prisons After the inspector general report, the Bureau of Prisons is told to wind down its contracts.
2. 2017 Phase-out reversed Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinds the order within weeks of taking office.
3. 2021 Ban ends Justice Department contracts, not ICE An executive order ends Bureau of Prisons private contracts but leaves immigration detention out.
4. 2025 Ban revoked, detention funding expanded The 2021 order is revoked, and the budget law funds $45 billion in detention.
5. 2026 ICE buys private detention centers ICE pays CoreCivic about $1.47 billion for two California facilities, which CoreCivic still runs.

Sources: DOJ Office of the Inspector General; American Immigration Council; TIME.

Federal private-prison policy, 2016 to 2026: 2016: Justice Department moves to phase out private prisons (After the inspector general report, the Bureau of Prisons is told to wind down its contracts.). 2017: Phase-out reversed (Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinds the order within weeks of taking office.). 2021: Ban ends Justice Department contracts, not ICE (An executive order ends Bureau of Prisons private contracts but leaves immigration detention out.). 2025: Ban revoked, detention funding expanded (The 2021 order is revoked, and the budget law funds $45 billion in detention.). 2026: ICE buys private detention centers (ICE pays CoreCivic about $1.47 billion for two California facilities, which CoreCivic still runs.).

2016: Built on the inspector general’s findings, the Justice Department told the Bureau of Prisons to reduce and eventually end its use of private contract prisons.

2017: Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded that order, and the phase-out stopped.

2021: A Biden executive order ended Justice Department private prison contracts. It did not cover the Department of Homeland Security, so ICE detention was untouched.

2025: The 2021 order was revoked, and the budget law put $45 billion into the detention the earlier reforms never reached.

2026: ICE started buying detention centers from the companies that run them, paying CoreCivic $739.2 million and $732.6 million for two California facilities.

What Would End Private Detention

The private detention business runs on a few legal mechanisms, which means changing them would shrink it. Courts have limited what states can do alone, so the table notes where each tool stands.

The state rulings turned on the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. In July 2025, the Third Circuit ruled 2-1 that New Jersey could not ban companies from running immigration detention because the ban interfered with federal immigration enforcement (New Jersey Monitor). A state can still decide what its own counties and cities do, which is why the Illinois approach held.

Where the 8% Ends and the 90% Begins

Private prisons are easy to talk about loosely, and the loose version gets the facts wrong.

The 8% and the 90.8% measure different systems. One is the share of state and federal prisoners, the other the share of ICE detainees. Blending them into one number is the most common mistake about this topic.

Most incarcerated people are in public facilities. Fewer than 9% of all incarcerated people are held in private facilities, the Prison Policy Initiative estimates. Ending private prisons would not end mass incarceration.

Public facilities have serious problems, too. The 2016 review found contract prisons less safe on most measures, but it also found fewer positive drug tests and less sexual misconduct there, and many government-run jails and detention centers have documented abuses of their own.

Not every contractor runs a prison. Food, health care, and phone companies operate inside public prisons and raise their own concerns. A private prison means a company runs the whole facility and gets paid by the head.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who owns the private prisons in the United States? GEO Group and CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America, are the largest. Both are publicly traded, so their revenue and contracts appear in public filings.

Which states rely on private prisons the most? Montana held 49% of its prisoners in private facilities in 2022, and Arizona, Tennessee, New Mexico, and Hawaii also rely on them heavily, the Sentencing Project found.

Can a state ban private immigration detention? Courts have said a state cannot ban companies from running ICE detention inside its borders. A state can bar its own counties and cities from contracting with ICE, as Illinois does.

What You Can Do

1. If someone you know is detained, find them with ICE’s Online Detainee Locator and look for free or low-cost legal help in the National Immigration Legal Services Directory.
2. If your county rents jail space to ICE, ask your county commissioners or sheriff whether they have an agreement and when it comes up for renewal. Local governments can decline to renew.
3. If your state legislature is considering detention limits, ask your legislators to follow the model that has held up in court, limits on state and local contracts. Find them at Open States.
4. Ask Congress to end federal contracts for private immigration detention. Use the letter and call script below.