As the Trump administration ramps up the criminalization of immigration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been instructed to “accelerate resource capacity.” Our new report shows how private prison corporations CoreCivic and GEO Group are primed to provide additional immigration detention space by privately financing new facility construction.
The report, An examination of private financing for correctional and immigration detention facilities, documents the new business frontier for the two publicly traded corporations: privately financing new facilities through “public-private partnerships.” Providing financing to governments has become a central growth strategy as both companies became Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in 2013, requiring them to have significant real estate holdings.
REIT status allows the corporations to avoid corporate-level taxation. GEO Group received almost $44 million in tax benefits in 2017.
Prison Industry Divestment Movement 