Trump’s Investment in Private Prisons Endangers Undocumented Immigrants

By: Julia Mickiewicz

Photo by Rebbeca Blackwell / AP

In pursuit of expanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention capacity, Donald Trump has modified existing contracts with various private prison operators, hoping to increase the amount of available beds to more than double those in existing facilities. These negotiations coincide with the 45 billion dollars allocated in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill to fund private detention centers. As a result, CoreCivic and the GEO Group, the two primary corporations that operate ICE detention centers, expect to see profit increases as they expand their facilities to meet President Trump’s mass detention agenda.

Trump’s vision of mass detention also relies on a sweeping reinterpretation of immigration law. On the legal side, his administration has markedly shifted away from past interpretations of immigration law. Previous administrations have distinguished between recent arrivals apprehended near the border, who are detained with few exceptions, and undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for longer, who can challenge their detention in immigration courts. Trump’s interpretation eliminates this distinction, mandating detention for any undocumented immigrant charged with a serious crime, regardless of how long they have lived in the United States. His legal maneuvering severely endangers undocumented immigrants as it condemns them to a long-term detention sentence with no pathways to challenge their fate.

Additionally, the Board of Immigration Appeals approved Trump’s announcement that undocumented immigrants are lawfully ineligible to receive bond. In previous administrations, courts granted undocumented immigrants bond during immigration proceedings, meaning that they could avoid detention while their immigration status was being decided. Trump’s new interpretation of bond eligibility is a considerable shift away from past precedent that will make it increasingly difficult for detained undocumented immigrants to reenter their communities. In combination, these two legal interpretations create the conditions for the population of detained immigrants to increase without any alternative options to avoid the detention system.

Increased custody in private detention centers will be detrimental to immigrant communities. Detained individuals have already reported intolerable conditions inside detention centers, despite the Department of Homeland Security’s assurances that the facilities are sanitary and safe. Outside of these individual testimonies, Kayla Freeman’s 2024 study finds that individuals detained in private prisons consistently ranked private prisons as less safe than public prisons in terms of their interactions with staff. Given these reports, Trump’s mission to detain more immigrants in privately run facilities may subject them to violations of their personal safety more egregious than those in public prisons.

The impact on immigrant communities may reach further than the correctional facilities. As the number of detained immigrants rapidly increases, the corporations that operate private prisons have the incentive to explore other correctional options outside of detention. The GEO Group has already reported investing resources into GPS tracking if its facilities reach capacity. GPS tracking is an element of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, an alternative to detention that ICE is pursuing. They justify this program on the grounds that it allows undocumented immigrants to remain in their communities while maintaining an assurance that they will appear on their court dates. While ICE frames this solution as a humane alternative to detention, it undoubtedly introduces a new level of scrutiny on immigrant communities, as it grants the administration an opportunity to monitor members of their community.

The views expressed in this publication are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Rice Journal of Public Policy, its staff, or its Editorial Board.

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