Private Prisons Foresee A Border Bonanza

Firms line up to aid Trump deportations, and some consider family detentions

- Elizabeth Findell, Tawnell D. Hobbs and Tarini Parti

Private prisons and other companies that provide detention services are getting ready to cash in on what Presidentelect Donald Trump has billed as "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history." That includes scouring for as many detention beds as possible in their networks of facilities, and scouting sites for new buildings to house migrants.

Some executives are considering whether to take up the controversial work of detaining families or unaccompanied children. Others are preparing to hire new staff and snapping up well-connected lobbyists.

"This is, to us, an unprecedented opportunity," George Zoley, executive chairman of GEO Group, a private prison company, told investors on an earnings call days after the November election.

Pulling off a deportation on the scale Trump has promised would constitute an unprecedented logistical feat for the U.S. government, involving identifying, locating, arresting, detaining, adjudicating and transporting potentially millions of men, women, and children.

The actual scale of Trump's plans remains unclear. While he repeatedly promised mass deportations during his first term in office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported about 935,000 people under his administration who had been in the U.S. illegally, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute-fewer per year than during the presidency of Barack Obama. The Biden administration, which deported relatively few people in its first year, deported more than 271,000 in fiscal year 2024-the most in 10 years-according to new figures from ICE. The administration deported 545,000 over its four years.