Private Equity Is Set to Profit Off a Border Crackdown

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, with plans for mass deportations and heightened surveillance of undocumented immigrants, the private equity firms that make money from immigration enforcement stand to profit handsomely.

A US Customs and Border Protection officer talks with guests at the MCAS Miramar Airshow on September 28, 2024, in San Diego, California. (Kevin Carter / Getty Images)


Private equity firms now hold contracts at nearly two-thirds of the country’s ninety federally designated immigration detention facilities, according to new research shared with us — meaning opaque, unaccountable, and profit-gouging Wall Street interests are set to make hundreds of millions of dollars detaining and surveilling the country’s immigrants.

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take power, with plans for mass deportations and heightened surveillance of undocumented immigrants, the private interests that make their money from immigration enforcement stand to benefit — and could help push these immigration crackdowns forward.

Private equity, which invests in for-profit companies and seeks high returns, is one of those interests. A new report released Wednesday by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a watchdog group that tracks the harms of private equity, reveals the stake the industry has in our immigration system, just as Trump threatens to expand it massively.

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