GEO Group and the Prison Industrial Complex

A hunger and labor strike by 300 immigrant detainees that started on May 22 at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, has thrown a spotlight on GEO Group, the Florida-based company that, along with Core Civic, oversees most Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers in the United States. While GEO Group also operates state prisons, around half of its revenue comes from ICE contracts.

GEO Group currently has 26,000 contracts with the federal government, charging around $165 per detainee bed per day. In 2025, the first year of Donald Trump’s second term in office, GEO group’s profits increased 700% over the prior year. Already in 2026, with profits of $705.2 million, GEO Group has experienced a 17% increase over 2025.

The links between the company and ICE are expected to get even closer since Trump appointed David Venturella, a former GEO Group executive, to serve as acting director of ICE on May 13. Venturella’s most recent appointment — one that does not require congressional approval — exposes the revolving door between the for-profit prison company and ICE. Venturella had been a career official with ICE and the agency that preceded it off and on since the 1980s. In 2012, he joined GEO Group where he worked for 12 years before returning to the federal government last year.

Other senior Department of Homeland Security officials, including White House Border Czar Tom Homan, also have close ties with the company.

The use of private prison companies to run ICE detention facilities has shown how the profit motive can be the cause of deteriorating, often inhumane, conditions in centers like Delaney Hall. Striking detainees at the Newark facility raise that rather than hiring workers at going wage rates, to maximize profits detainees themselves were forced to clean facilities and serve food at $1 dollar per hour or no pay at all.

By denying any problems exist and limiting access for inspections to ensure compliance with government standards, the company can continue to maximize profits. The push for profits and the lack of oversight led to more detainees — nearly 50 — dying in ICE custody in 2025 than in any year in at least two decades. (CNN, May 15)

The rise of the Prison Industrial Complex

Private immigration detention centers like those run by GEO Group and Core Civic have played a major role in the growth of the Prison Industrial Complex, which existed for decades before the mass incarceration of undocumented immigrants began.

However, a study by the Sentencing Project (Tuft University) found that while the total prison population in the U.S. increased from 1,381,892 to 1,505,400 detainees, or 9%, from 2000 to 2026, for-profit private immigration detention grew from 4,841 to 26,249, a 442% increase in the same period.

With less than 5% of the global population, the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of incarceration globally at about 580 per 100,000 residents. (prisonpolicy.org) Roughly 2.3 million people are incarcerated and an additional 4.5 million on probation or parole. 

In her book “The New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander pointed out that “convictions for drug offenses are the single most important cause of the explosion in incarceration rates in the U.S., with over 31 million people arrested for drug offenses since the drug war began. Nothing has contributed more to the systemic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on Drugs.” (2010)

While Alexander notes that “Black men have been admitted to state prison on drug charges at a rate more than 13 times higher than white men,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) raises that the disproportionate incarceration of people of color is not limited to drug crimes. “One out of every three Black boys born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can one of every six Latino boys — compared to one of every 17 white boys.” (aclu.org) Other marginalized groups — poor people, queer people and disabled people — are also disproportionately incarcerated. (Tufts University Prison Divestment, 2026).

Beyond the growth of numbers of people incarcerated, the expansion of opportunities for private companies to profit impacts prisons on every level. Prison abolitionist activists in states from Massachusetts to California have demonstrated against the growing privatization of food services by Aramark Corporation; privatization of medical care by Wellpath; contracting Smart Communications to process prisoners’ personal mail; and Global Link Technologies for providing phone call services. Other predatory companies mentioned include Securus Technologies, Polycom, JPay and Keefe Group. 

Using these private prison companies, including GEO Group and Core Civic, to essentially run and maintain the prison industrial system by maximizing profits greatly reduces oversight and accountability while worsening conditions inside the walls.

Workers World says — “Tear down the walls! Smash the Prison Industrial Complex!”