The largest corporate owner of immigration detention centers is reporting its best financial quarter ever, a result of government contracts related to President Trump’s mass deportation campaign continuing to boost revenues.
Earnings for the GEO Group have risen 14% so far in 2026, from $1.9 to $2.2 billion, chairman and CEO George Zoley told investors during a quarterly update by telephone on Thursday.
He pointed to a deal worth close to $1 billion to sell a detention center to ICE in Adelanto, California, that GEO will still operate.
The company is also in the process of activating three more immigration detention centers.
“We expect the fourth quarter of 2026 to be another record setting quarter,” Zoley said in the investor call.
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Competitor CoreCivic reported even bigger revenue growth. The company has seen a 27% increase in earnings from $1.6 billion last year to over $2 billion so far in 2026. The company credited a jump in the number of immigrants ICE keeps detaining at their facilitie and the activation of four more CoreCivic detention centers.
Both companies expect ICE to continue its policy of mass detention, even after voters indicated immigration enforcement has gone too far. The Trump administration has said it will not back down.
“Deportations will continue,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin posted to social media.
CoreCivic President and CEO Lucibeth Mayberry told investors that because Congress already set ICE funding through 2029, they anticipate the government will continue seeking contracts to house detainees.
“They can continue to enter contracts and utilize bed capacity through that funding up until then,” Mayberry said. “So we believe they will continue to do so. We haven’t seen signals that they would not.”
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CoreCivic and GEO Group’s taxpayer-funded contracts are certain to see more oversight from Democrats who plan to train their new congressional investigative powers on DHS when they take the majority in the House and Senate.
On Wednesday, incoming House Homeland Security Committee chairman Bennie Thompson sent a letter to Mullin demanding “DHS preserve every record, email, and contract.”
