Private Prisons

California Town Lets Private ICE Detention Centers Police Themselves

June 16, 2026 Robin Urevich, Scheer Post. Educate! California, Detention Centers, Human Rights, ICE, Police, Private Prisons

Two years ago, immigration attorney Mario Valenzuela visited a client at the Golden State Annex, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center operated by the private prison giant The GEO Group Inc. in the small agricultural town of McFarland in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Valenzuela’s client had a black eye and bruises on his body, he said. The client told Valenzuela that he’d been surrounded and beaten by seven or eight fellow detainees in the detention center’s recreation yard and was taken to a hospital emergency room. His client, who didn’t authorize his attorney to give his name, wanted to report the assault to the police, Valenzuela said.

Private Prison Companies, Executives Have Donated Millions To Congress

February 6, 2026 Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg and Ethan Corey, In These Times. Educate! Congress, Detention, ICE, Money in Politics, Private Prisons

Leading for-profit prison companies donated about half a million dollars to Republican members of Congress currently in office, and $58,000 to Democratic congressmembers, from 2021 through 2025, according to an investigation by The Appeal. Executives at these firms have also donated millions of dollars to candidates, political parties, and political action committees (PACs). More than 70,000 people are currently being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the majority of them are incarcerated in private prisons.

Trump Administration Opens New Immigration Jail At Texas Military Base

August 19, 2025 Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, Truthout. Educate! Detention Centers, Immigrant Rights, Military bases, Private Prisons, Texas

Despite local opposition, the Trump administration has opened what’s expected to be the largest immigration jail in the country, on the grounds of the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas. In addition to Fort Bliss, the Trump administration also plans to detain immigrants on military bases in New Jersey and Indiana. On August 18, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), whose district includes most of El Paso and part of Fort Bliss, was the first federal lawmaker to conduct an oversight tour of the jail, which is expected to eventually hold about 5,000 people. At a press conference held outside the jail, Escobar told reporters that she did not speak with any of the approximately 1,000 people detained at the “massive tent city.”

A Fight Is Brewing In The Midwest Over Immigrant Mass Detention

August 11, 2025 Brian Dolinar, Truthout. Organize! Detention, ICE, Midwest, Private Prisons, Solidarity

“It was terrible,” Olivier Habimana* remembered about his first night at a small county jail in Indiana after being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Born in Rwanda and educated in Belgium, he came to the United States to work as an operations manager for a French company based in Indianapolis that supplies parts for the big three auto companies. He was a middle-class professional, and he had never been in jail before. So, when he was arrested by ICE, it was a “huge shock,” he told Truthout. Agents put him in the back of a van that made him feel like “an animal in a cage.” When he got to the small jail in Clay County, in rural Indiana, he was surprised. President Donald Trump’s $45 billion plan for ICE detention, announced in April and approved by Congress in the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” includes the reopening of two private prisons in the Midwest. One is the North Lake Correctional Facility, run by GEO Group, in rural Baldwin, Michigan, with a capacity to hold 1,800 people. It has already been opened and begun accepting its first detainees. The other is what is being called the Midwest Regional Reception Center, operated by CoreCivic, in Leavenworth, Kansas, which can hold another 1,000 people. A court decision requiring the owner to obtain a special permit is stalling its opening.

As US Authorities Crack Down On Immigrants, ICE Seeks To Expand

February 27, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Detention, Donald Trump, ICE, Immigration, mass deportations, Private Prisons, United States

As Trump’s mass deportation efforts continue to terrorize immigrant communities across the US, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE)’s vast network of primarily for-profit detention centers have exceeded their capacity. Earlier in February, ICE was forced to release some migrants from their facilities after reaching 109% capacity. Due to limited detention capacity, Trump’s administration has utilized a strategy dubbed “catch and release”, which Trump himself had criticized Biden for employing. Through “catch and release”, migrants that are considered “nonviolent” by immigration authorities are released after agreeing to return for their hearings in immigration court.

Visualizing The Economic Veins That Fuel Our Carceral Reality

July 13, 2022 The Mapping Project, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Capitalism, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Prisoner rights, Private Prisons

The contemporary US prison system incarcerates people — largely Black, Native, Latinx, disabled, and working-class and poor folks — and hides them from society for years, decades, or lifetimes. This is true across the United States generally and in Massachusetts, specifically. These days, when discussing the case against incarceration and the prison system, there are a few different arguments one tends to hear: (1) the first is that incarceration is immoral and reprehensible in both its conditions and treatment of incarcerated people; (2) a second, appealing to economists and technocratic policymakers, argues that prisons are a drain on taxpayer dollars and the money wasted there would be better spent on social services and alternatives; (3) another argument that centers racialization is that the prison system is a direct continuation of chattel slavey, chain gangs, and Jim Crow forced labor; (4) a final common refrain is that degenerate investors in private prisons and detention centers, as well as other perpetrators of gross injustice live off of turning prison labor into private profit.

How Public Workers Can Stop The Privatization Of Everything

December 22, 2021 Steve Early, Portside. Educate! Charter Schools, Private Prisons, Privatization, Worker Rights and Jobs

Several years ago, Don Cohen, a former central labor council staffer from San Diego, appeared on a panel discussing the privatization threats faced by union members across the country. He and other speakers were addressing a conference of state, county, and municipal workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a group which did not include any federal employees. When Cohen described propaganda campaigns that proponents of privatization conduct to pave the way for out-sourcing local government or state university jobs, audience members immediately recognized that kind of employer behavior and its adverse impact on them. However, when another speaker—a campaigner against privatization of services for veterans--did some quick polling on what CWA activists had heard or read about the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), their attitude toward that federal agency was largely negative.

Ending Private Prisons Is Not Enough

March 7, 2021 Ashish Prashar, Business Insider. Educate! Corporations, Joe Biden, Prison Labor, Private Prisons

President Joe Biden, by executive order, directed the Department of Justice to end its private prison use. It's a step in the right direction and a symbolic moment for this administration to say they are going to take criminal justice reform seriously. While this step decouples the federal government's relationship with private prisons, let's remember that such institutions hold just about 9% of the federal prison population — a little more than 14,000 people. Profit from incarcerated people doesn't meet the moral standards of justice. However, private prisons aren't even where the biggest profits exist. Private companies continue to profit off the labor of inmates in the public prison system, or, the "prison industrial complex." President Biden must also dismantle this repugnant practice. These corporations have monetized crime and punishment with the government's help.

Biden’s Order Terminates Federal Private Prison Contracts

January 30, 2021 Char Adams, NBC News. Educate! Joe Biden, Mass Incarceration, Private Prisons

President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order that will phase out the Department of Justice’s use of private prisons. The action is part of the administration’s effort to address racial inequity in the country and make good on Biden’s campaign promises to Black Americans — who were integral to securing his presidential win. The order directs the Justice Department to decline to renew contracts with privately-operated, for-profit prisons. This effort began under the Obama administration and was championed by then-DeputyAttorney General Sally Yates. The policy was quickly axed by the Trump administration in 2017.

New FOIA Docs Expose Conditions In Private Immigration Prison

August 23, 2020 Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. Resist! Detention Centers, Immigrants, Prisoner rights, Private Prisons

New documents shed light on what activists are calling “a dark pattern of abuse” at a privately-run, for-profit prison in Virginia used by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Obtained by the civil rights group the Advancement Project under the Freedom of Information Act, the documents describe a long pattern of abuse, neglect and mismanagement of detainees at Immigration Centers of America (ICA) Farmville — a facility where almost everyone has coronavirus. In 2015, for instance, one detainee was pepper sprayed in the face while in full restraints.

Private Prison To Pay $3.7 Million After Recording Attorney-Client Conversations

August 7, 2020 Equal Justice Initiative. Educate! Legal System, Prisoner rights, Privacy, Private Prisons

Private prison company CoreCivic and communications company Securus Technologies agreed on Friday to pay $3.7 million to settle federal claims that they illegally recorded attorney-client conversations in a private pre-trial detention facility and shared those recordings with law enforcement and others. In 2016, a federal court in Missouri found that detention facilities including CoreCivic’s Leavenworth Detention Center in Kansas had installed devices that could record communications between attorneys and detained clients, Law360 reported.

Private Prison Sues State For Not Having Enough Prisoners

May 13, 2020 Es Fein, Wondergressive. Educate! Accountability, Corporatism, Prisons, Private Prisons

A private prison in Arizona recently sued the state for having a lack of prisoners. For the sake of saving over $16 million in back pay, the state settled by paying the private prison $3 million. Arizona essentially payed a company $3 million because not enough people are committing crimes. To be fair, it’s a bit more complex than that. In July, 2010 three violent inmates escaped from an Arizona private prison, which prompted officials to stop sending new inmates to the facility. I say good job to the officials for demanding better performance from Management & Training Corp., the company that runs the prison. Unfortunately, a line in the company’s contract with the state guarantees that the prison is at least 97% full at all times. They sued on grounds that the breach of contract caused a dramatic loss in revenue.

Activists And Protesters Rally At Private Prison Company Geo Group’s New Boca Raton Headquarters

August 16, 2019 Austen Erblat, Sun-sentinel.com Resist! Private Prisons, Protests

As storm clouds gathered over Boca Raton Monday afternoon, so too did two dozen activists, protesters and organizers at the newly opened headquarters of private prison company Geo Group. Representing organizations including Fort Lauderdale Food Not Bombs and Never Again Action, an organization that rallies mostly Jewish activists around immigrants’ rights at detention centers and other locations around the country. They gathered at the location almost exactly one year ago, when construction of the company’s new building was in its early stages. This year, they returned on the anniversary of the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia protests, where a white supremacist plowed his car into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens, and one day after Tisha B’Av, a holiday that memorializes temple destructions and mass killings of Jews throughout history.

Jewish Groups Are Taking Action From Coast To Coast To Close The Camps

August 11, 2019 Popular Resistance. Resist! Concentration Camps, ICE, Immigrant Rights, Private Prisons

Jewish Communities are holding "Close The Camps" actions across the country to protest the detention of migrants in the United States, the current immigration policies and mistreatment of migrants seeking asylum. On July 30, Never Again movement activists blockaded the Minnesota Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in St. Paul for over three hours. Twenty seven were arrested. On August 2, Jewish Activists marched and rallied in Portland Maine. On August 5, Jewish activists protested at the GEO Group office in Los Angeles. The GEO Group is one of the private corporations that profits by running migrant detention centers. More protests are planned in the coming weeks.

Resistance To Private Prison Industry Mounts Amid Debate Over Trump’s Immigration Detention Policies

August 6, 2019 Lauren-Brooke "L.B." Eisen, Brennancenter.org Educate! Detention Centers, Immigration, Private Prisons, Undocumented

Controversy over immigration policy is shining an unwelcome spotlight on the private prison industry, which runs detention facilities that house tens of thousands of immigrants. The private prison industry is under renewed scrutiny, and things are not going well for it. Prison companies were already under fire, accused of putting profits above the well-being of incarcerated individuals and staff at the dozens of federal and state prisons and local jails they run around the country.

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