- Private prison profits are surging as the Trump administration ramps up immigration enforcement aiming to deport a million people this year.

Geo Group and CoreCivic, the two industries biggest players, report double digit revenue jumps fueled by new ICE contracts, including at Newark's Delaney Hall.

This as the number of people in immigration detention facilities hits record highs.

To discuss more on the crackdown and this business boom and what this means for the state, I'm joined by our Washington DC correspondent, Ben Hulak.

Hi Ben, thanks for joining me.

- Absolutely, happy to talk.

- Ben, these detention centers have long been a flashpoint in cities like Newark over immigration policies, but now financial analysts are calling them a fantastic growth opportunity.

How big are the potential profits?

- Well, really massive, I would say.

I talked with a lawyer yesterday who's watched immigration detention policy and politics play out in New Jersey for years now.

And in her eyes, this is, maybe not a once in a lifetime, but certainly this is an unprecedented moment.

And at the back of the industry is $170 billion worth of funding that Congress has just approved for new ICE detention facilities, recruitment.

And that is buoying this whole massive wave for the private prison industry in New Jersey and beyond.

To your point, there is an ecstatic sentiment around this industry from financial analysts, and it's really a massive financial growth opportunity.

- I mean, how lucrative are these contracts, Ben?

- It's a bit hard to tell contract to contract, but they're really the, I think the key thing to understand here is that the industry is heavily reliant on government contracts.

So for Delaney Hall, for example, that's the Newark site, one of the two ICE detention facilities in New Jersey.

That is a $60 million profit, likely in the first year.

And the overall contract goes out 15 years, it's $1.2 billion.

So we're talking, that's B money, not million with an M. It's just massive.

And this industry, of course, has been around for years under the Obama administration.

The Obama administration deported, I think 400,000 undocumented people.

The second Trump administration is, of course, targeting 1 million in the first year.

So to meet that target, there is massive money behind it, and it is a industry that's really just thrilled with what's going on now.

- Well, Ben, we saw new data out from ICE this week showing that the majority of detainees in New Jersey are listed as non-criminal, including nearly 90% of those at Delaney Hall.

So how does that fit in here with the Trump administration's goals?

- Right, it's, I'm thinking of a quote Tom Homan, who is known as the borders are for the administration, said back in January.

He said that people will be collateral damage.

There will be collateral arrests of people who are effectively innocent.

Because in his eyes, this is just a price worth paying.

So this bears out, this is a broad national pattern.

And actually before we started talking, I looked up some research from the TRAC group out of Syracuse University.

This is a group that sifts through public data, files open records requests, and collates all sorts of numbers.

As of late July, 71% of all people detained by ICE nationwide do not have a criminal record.

And beyond that, if they do have a criminal record, there's another portion, it is a mild offense, something like a traffic ticket or a misdemeanor.

These are not, yes, that's a trend in New Jersey, but this is playing out nationwide.

- Well, Ben, the private operators are also looking to profit by expanding their reach, right?

By using military sites to hold detainees now.

Can you tell us what your reporting shows about that?

- Yeah, so I've been asking around and doing a little digging about the potential use of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakers down in South Jersey as a site.

GeoGroup is one of the companies I've been covering along with many of the reporters.

And then the other operator is CoreCivic.

Those are the two large private prison industry giants, really.

They're looking at military options.

They're also looking to expand their business through transportation.

So that's ground and air transportation by moving detainees.

And then there's another growth opportunity in their eyes here, which is tracking people who are not held within brick and mortar walls in places like Delaney Hall or the Elizabeth Detention Center, but tracking people with GPS monitors.

That's another huge lucrative opportunity for them here.

And the money flowing, I just can't underscore this enough.

The 170 billion is a one-time chunk of money on top of regular congressional appropriations.

So this is a huge windfall already for the administry, for these industry groups, I should say.

And this money from the federal government hasn't really started to flow yet.

So they're at the top of this crest and it's going for the ride.

- That's a great point, Ben, because we know that there has been pushback, right?

So will the pushback really quick, will the pushback from those against the expansion of these detention centers impact their growth in the future?

- It certainly could.

And certain states have, like New Jersey, taken legislative steps to block the expansion of ICE detention facilities.

Of course, the Third Circuit recently, maybe three, four weeks ago, struck down that state policy that will allow the expansion of detention facilities.

But really the lucrative opportunities here are not in the Northeast.

They are in Texas, Louisiana, much of the South, where the state legislatures are friendlier and it's often easier to hide folks away out of sight from big cities.

Of course, this place called Alligator Alcatraz in Florida has gotten a ton of attention.

There's also a site in Indiana that the administration is sort of darkly calling the Speedway Slammer.

That is, of course, a reference to stock car racing in Indiana.

The tentacles of this industry are continuing to spread out throughout this year.

And none of this really should come as a surprise.

This is what Mr. Trump campaigned on, what his allies in Congress have voted for, and it's really out in the open, sort of plain to watch and predictable in a sense.

This is what we saw coming.

- Right, excellent reporting.

Thank you for joining me.

And to see more of Ben's reporting, you can go to njspotlightnews.org.

- Thanks.

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