(Roughly) Daily

The Trump administration’s immigration policy has been a bonanza for the private prison sector– as Vanessa Romo reports, for two companies with ties to the administration in particular…

America’s two largest private prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, are reporting a combined $1.4 billion in quarterly revenue over the spring as immigration detention closes in on record levels.

Those revenues announced Thursday do not include net proceeds of $1.6 billion made by CoreCivic after the recent sale of four of their facilities to the Department of Homeland Security. Patrick Swindle [!], CoreCivic’s President and CEO, told investors on an earnings call that that works out to an average rate of $307,000 per bed.

The earnings — from April through June of this year — come as the U.S. is holding almost 66,000 people in immigration detention, nearing record levels not seen since January, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan research center. Both companies say they’re also finding other revenue opportunities, like ankle monitors for Haitian immigrants who recently lost their protected immigration status.

Swindle said that CoreCivic’s total revenue went up by just over 27% this spring compared to the same quarter last year, for a total of $684.9 million. CoreCivic exceeded expectations in a period that included the government shutdown, Swindle said. This was accomplished in part by lowering operating costs — meaning the business of detaining people is becoming cheaper — and because of more people being put in detention.

CoreCivic’s sales of detention centers to the government won’t be reflected until next quarter — but they are part of a larger strategy to meet President Trump’s goal of having 100,000 people in detention at once. CoreCivic made a deal to continue operating the detention centers and also hopes to build more. Meanwhile, GEO Group says they’re also in talks to do the same.

GEO Group CEO George Zoley said in his company’s earnings call also on Thursday that thanks to 2025 contracts, total revenues are up to $732.1 million — an increase of nearly $96 million or 15% — over the same period last year.

GEO Group’s government ties run deep. Former GEO Group executive David Venturella is the acting director of ICE. In a recent letter, he told lawmakers he has divested his GEO Group stock.

President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan was also a paid consultant for GEO Group before joining the government, and former Attorney General Pam Bondi lobbied for GEO Group before she was appointed.

President Trump also has financial stakes in the two companies, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics. An analysis of Trump’s most recent financial disclosure by CREW last month found that the president’s brokers have made 29 trades of private prison stocks since he returned to office. According to the study, the first purchases were made on the 10th day of his second term. The total amount bought and sold was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars split between GEO Group and CoreCivic.

In Thursday’s call, GEO Group noted that their ankle monitoring sales are up. The electronic devices are part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program contract it has with ICE, along with smartwatches and the SmartLink phone app that help the government keep tabs on immigrants outside of detention, Zoley said.

Zoley also told investors that GPS-tracking ankle monitors in particular will likely keep climbing now that Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants has ended.

“Because of this new policy shift as to who will be subject to this immigration enforcement like … the Haitians, we could see a significant increase in the number of people in the ISAP program,” Zoley said, adding “most of them, we believe, would be placed under the ankle monitoring supervision.” He noted that “the app is far less expensive than the ankle monitors.”…

On those “sales of detention center to the government”: it appears the administration has retreated from overpaying for warehouses needy of retrofitting in area that don’t want them, opting instead to buy currently-operating facilities.

The misery market: “Private prisons announce $1.4 billion in revenue as immigration detentions climb,” from @npr.org.

* “Deep Throat” (subsequently identified as Mark Felt), William Goldman in the screenplay for All the President’s Men

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As we grapple with graft, we might recall that it was on this date in 1724 that Johann Sebastian Bach led the first performance of his Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101, a chorale cantata based on “Vater unser im Himmelreich“ (Our Father in Heaven), a Lutheran hymn, a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer in German by Martin Luther.

See/hear it here.