Immigration
A few days ago...
GEO Group made the donation weeks after securing two five-year immigration detention-center contracts expected to generate more than $160 million annually
GEO Group contributed $1.4 million to a powerful super PAC that supports President Donald Trump and his political agenda just weeks after the private prison and immigration detention center operator scored two massive government contracts.
According to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by The Lever, on July 16 MAGA Inc. received $1 million from GEO Reentry Services, LLC, which donated an additional $413,000 to Trump’s $400 million war chest on July 31.
GEO Reentry Services is a branch of GEO Group that provides transitional services, such as substance abuse classes and work-readiness skills, to help formerly incarcerated people return to their communities.
The donations come just weeks after GEO Group won two five-year Department of Homeland Security contracts to operate detention processing facilities in Colorado and North Carolina. In public statements, the private prison company has estimated that the contracts will generate more than $160 million in annual revenue.
In Colorado, GEO Group will be under contract to operate a 1,188-bed processing facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The private prison company said in press releases that it expects the Colorado contract to deliver “approximately $85 million in annual revenues in the first full year of operations,” and that the 1,320-bed facility in North Carolina will bring an estimated $80 million in annual revenues.
“We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to assist the federal government in meeting its immigration enforcement priorities,” said George Zoley, GEO Group’s founder and CEO, in the announcements.
Zoley has personally donated at least $286,000 to Trump’s reelection efforts since 2019, federal data shows.
Earlier this month, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment filed a lawsuit against GEO Group to allow state inspectors into a local facility to investigate a tuberculosis outbreak. The lawsuit also claims that GEO Group refused to provide medical information about the outbreak to health officials.
GEO Group is jockeying for more of the Trump administration’s ICE contracts. The private prison operator is currently embroiled in a contested battle to kneecap private airline companies contracted to provide free flights to immigrants who choose to “self-deport” out of the country.
If the Trump administration ended its self-deportation program, as some lawmakers have called for, then the government could funnel more resources to GEO Group to expand its private detention infrastructure, according to an airline contractor.
GEO Group is also facing lawsuits alleging forced labor at its detention centers. In June, federal regulators revised detention standards in a way that could help stymie those lawsuits, reportedly at the private prison company’s urging.
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