Most ICE detainees have no criminal history: AFP analysis

Korean veteran Jack Harrison, 89, in wheelchair originally from Michigan holds a sign NO ICE outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles Wednesday, June 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

The number of migrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reached record numbers in June and a vast majority do not have criminal records, according to AFP analysis of official data.

Private prison corporations, running the United States’ already-huge and expanding detention system, are set to benefit from the Trump administration’s unprecedented deportation drive, data shows.

A record 60,254 people were held in ICE facilities last month, up from 40,500 in January before Trump took office.

Of those, 71 percent have no criminal record compared to 54 percent last year, ICE data from the end of the 2024 fiscal year shows.

Expanding detention capacity

President Donald Trump was elected last year on a promise to lead the largest migrant deportation program in US history.

His administration has been aggressively targeting the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented migrants.

Lawmakers also delivered a big win for the president this month by voting to give ICE its biggest budget to date, with $45 billion set to go towards constructing immigration facilities.

Data from June shows the detention system is already growing: 200 facilities held ICE detainees in June compared to 107 in January.

The Trump administration aims to increase the number of beds available for detainees to 100,000 by the end of the year, more than doubling the capacity available in 2024.

This rapid expansion is being carried out by building new centers and repurposing existing facilities.

A new migrant camp dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” opened on July 1 and is built on a disused airfield surrounded by alligator-filled swamps deep in the Florida Everglades.

Trump has also said he would like to turn the Guantanamo Bay navy station in Cuba into a 30,000-bed facility.

This has yet to happen, though. Official data shows a daily average of 22 people were held in the station’s two existing detention centers in June.

Various non-profits have raised concerns about the swift growth and the conditions that people are being detained in.

Human Rights Watch published a report on Monday describing abusive treatment at three facilities in Florida, where migrants are reportedly sleeping on floors and women are held in cells with exposed toilets visible to men in nearby rooms.

Soft-sided facilities, which are quick-to-build tent structures increasingly used by ICE, are also raising alarm bells.

Highly profitable

The private companies running large parts of the detention system are set to profit from the expansion.

More than four out of every five detainees were held at one of the United States’ 62 privately-operated facilities as of June 2025, according to AFP analysis of the ICE data.

These facilities are run by a handful of firms: the GEO Group and CoreCivic, both publicly traded companies, are the biggest operators and respectively manage 25 and 17 centers, official data shows.

The GEO Group – which announced a $70 million investment in December 2024 to grow its detention capabilities – has signed two new contracts with ICE since January and significantly expanded a third.

The firm hopes to earn an additional $153 million annually from these new deals alone, according to company reports.

A second Trump term has been good news for the private prison firms’ bottom line.

The GEO Group and CoreCivic’s stock prices increased by 75 and 69 percent each in the days following the Republican’s reelection, and both have remained at 5-year highs since.

The two leading private prison firms and some of their top executives also made significant contributions to Republicans and the Trump campaign last year, according to data from nonprofit OpenSecrets.

The GEO Group donated over $3.6 million to Republicans in 2024, including $1 million to a Trump PAC.

The corporation also has close ties with the administration: Pam Bondi, the US Attorney General, was a GEO Group lobbyist as recently as 2019.

CoreCivic donated $784,974 in 2024, mostly to Republicans. The group’s president Damon Hininger also made individual contributions to the Trump campaign, as did other executives, OpenSecrets Data shows.

By Laetitia Commanay in Paris with Corin Faife in New York