The Customer in Question
CoreCivic's CEO described Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a 'customer' on a 2025 earnings call; investors on the same calls expressed frustration that the agency's record detention numbers were not yet high enough. ICE revenues for the contractor more than doubled that year.
#predatory capital #deportation machinery
On a CoreCivic earnings call in early 2026, CEO Patrick Swindle described Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a “customer” with whom the company maintained “constant dialogue” to evaluate “how we can participate in that” mission. CoreCivic and GEO Group, the two largest private operators of immigration detention facilities in the United States, had reactivated idle capacity in advance of the second Trump administration’s enforcement push. The Dilley, Texas family detention center — where letters from imprisoned children reached ProPublica reporters — is among those reactivated facilities.
CoreCivic’s executive compensation is structured to track company earnings. ICE revenues for the company more than doubled in 2025. Investors on the same earnings calls — Raj Sharma of Texas Bank, Matthew Arbner of Jones Trading, Greg Gibas of Northland Securities, Ben Briggs of StoneX Financial, M. Marin of Zacks, Bill Sutherland of Benchmark, Joe Gomes of Noble Capital — were on record expressing frustration that record detention numbers had not climbed higher.
The frustration is the substance. There is, on this analytic frame, no scenario in which a facility designed to hold immigrants is full enough.