DEPORTATIONSFor-Profit Immigration Detention Expands as Trump Accelerates His Deportation Plans
The Trump administration is moving quickly to dramatically expand the nation’s capacity for detaining immigrants who do not have legal authorization to be in the United States. States may not be able to limit or block new contracts with private companies.
The Trump administration is moving quickly to dramatically expand the nation’s capacity for detaining immigrants who do not have legal authorization to be in the United States.
The administration has largely turned to the for-profit, private prison industry to reopen or repurpose shuttered and aging facilities — many of which have been previously criticized for poor conditions and inadequate care.
In February, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it will reopen Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey. The detention facility, owned by private prison company GEO Group, has the capacity to hold about 1,000 people. It will become the largest ICE processing and detention center on the East Coast. The 15-year contract is valued at $1 billion.
Private prison operator CoreCivic also announced it will reopen the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. The family detention site can house up to 2,400 ICE detainees, including children. The new contract will run through at least March 2030.
Private immigration detention is growing fast — again. The Trump administration is rapidly expanding immigration detention through billion-dollar contracts with private prison companies, including GEO Group and CoreCivic. Dozens of facilities may reopen across at least eight states, including places with long histories of abuse. But while some communities and states are concerned about oversight and are pushing back, others see economic opportunity.
President Donald Trump isn’t the first president to rely on private contractors to detain immigrants. Tens of thousands were held in private facilities under both the Obama and Biden administrations.
But the new contracts mark the start of a planned expansion led by Trump’s border adviser, Tom Homan, who has called for boosting ICE’s detention capacity to at least 100,000 people.
Trump has repeatedly touted his goal of staging the “largest deportation operation in American history,” vowing to deport millions of people. There are an estimated 11 million immigrants who are not legally authorized to live in the United States, according to the Migration Policy Institute, an independent, nonpartisan think tank.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told attendees of the 2025 Border Security Expo in Arizona this week that he wants the agency to become as efficient at deporting immigrants as e-commerce giant Amazon is at delivering packages.
“We need to get better at treating this like a business,” Lyons said, describing his ideal deportation process as “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.”
