The One Big Beautiful Bill: A $45 Billion Gift to Private Prison Profiteers
America’s federal prisons are overcrowded and underfunded. Nearly 156,000 people are locked up in a system designed for far fewer, while staff shortages and deteriorating conditions keep getting worse. Yet instead of addressing this crisis, Congress just passed the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill yesterday — sending tens of billions to expand immigration detention instead.
This bill marks the largest investment ever in ICE detention centers, aiming to double capacity while leaving federal prisons stuck at overcrowding levels. Private prison corporations and security contractors are the biggest winners, set to collect billions in new contracts funded by taxpayers. Many of these same companies have poured money into political campaigns to keep the cash flowing.
In this post, I’ll break down how much we spend on prisons now, what the new bill adds for ICE detention, who profits, and how the money circles right back to campaign donors.
Current State of Federal Prisons and ICE Detention
Federal Prisons (BOP)
The Federal Bureau of Prisons operates on an annual budget of around $8.3 billion.
It has a rated capacity of about 135,841 beds, but is currently holding over 155,000 inmates — running at roughly 115% capacity.
That means tens of thousands of people are packed into overcrowded cells, with too few staff and growing safety problems.
ICE Detention Centers
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) runs its own network of detention centers, mostly through private contractors.
ICE has an average daily detained population of about 56,000 people.
Its detention operations cost taxpayers roughly $3.5 billion each year.
In short, the federal prison system is bursting at the seams and ICE is already spending billions to hold migrants and asylum seekers. Instead of fixing chronic overcrowding or investing in alternatives, Congress just opened the floodgates to even more detention spending.
The One Big Beautiful Bill: A Massive Expansion
Yesterday, Congress passed what’s being called the One Big Beautiful Bill, a sweeping package that sends billions of new dollars into immigration enforcement. One headline piece is a staggering $45 billion over four years dedicated just to building and expanding ICE detention centers — including new family facilities and tent-style camps to double capacity.
Altogether, the bill directs up to $150–170 billion over five years for border enforcement, surveillance technology, and a massive hiring push. That means ICE detention capacity could jump from about 56,000 beds to over 100,000, the largest expansion in U.S. history.
Meanwhile, funding for the Federal Bureau of Prisons barely budged. Even though federal prisons are well over capacity and dealing with staffing and safety failures, they will see no major increase beyond the existing $8.3 billion annual budget.
This is a clear political signal: Congress is prioritizing more immigration detention while ignoring a federal prison system on.
Who Benefits From All This Money?
The biggest winners in the One Big Beautiful Bill are the private contractors that run or support ICE detention. These companies have long profited from the growth of the detention system, and now stand to make billions more.
GEO Group is one of the largest private prison operators in the country, running about 99 facilities with an estimated 80,000 beds. It already makes over a billion dollars a year from ICE detention contracts and is in line for even bigger deals under the bill.
CoreCivic, another major player, operates around 65 facilities with 76,000 beds. It has reopened several family detention centers and is positioning itself to grab a huge share of the new contracts.
Other companies like MVM, Inc. — which handles security staffing, transportation, and translation for ICE — will also benefit. And the bill sets aside funding for construction and “temporary” camp infrastructure, which means companies that build and maintain tent facilities, such as Deployed Resources or BLU-MED, are also likely to cash in.
In other words, the billions of taxpayer dollars approved yesterday will go straight into the pockets of private prison corporations and security contractors — not to public defenders, alternatives to detention, or real solutions to overcrowding.
Campaign Contributions: Follow the Money
It’s not just that private prison contractors stand to gain from this bill — they have also been major financial backers of Trump and pro-Trump causes, raising serious questions about whether this is a payoff for their support.
GEO Group is the biggest ICE detention contractor and has spent heavily to keep those contracts flowing. In 2024, GEO-related PACs and executives gave $78,124 directly to Trump’s campaign, with a total of $3.7 million donated across the cycle to GOP-aligned committees (source: OpenSecrets). GEO Group was also the first corporate PAC to max out donations for Trump’s 2024 run, and put another $500,000 into pro-Trump super PACs like MAGA Inc. (source: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington).
CoreCivic has also been a reliable donor. In 2024, the company contributed at least $223,223 to the Republican National Committee, plus hundreds of thousands more to other GOP committees (source: OpenSecrets). In January 2025, CoreCivic gave $500,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund, cementing its political ties (source: ABC News).
These donations line up neatly with the billions in new ICE detention funding approved under the One Big Beautiful Bill. It’s a pattern: the same private contractors who bankroll pro-detention politicians later win lucrative contracts when those politicians are in power.
Beyond campaign cash, there are also plenty of revolving-door connections — for example, former ICE acting director Tom Homan, a prominent Trump ally, later worked for GEO Group, while other ICE officials have landed jobs in private detention companies (source: Prison Legal News).
This cycle of donations, influence, and taxpayer-funded contracts is at the heart of how immigration detention keeps growing. It’s not just policy — it’s a profitable business backed by campaign money.
Conclusion: A Donor Payout
The One Big Beautiful Bill claims to strengthen border security, but the biggest effect will be to pour billions into the same corporations that have fueled the growth of private detention for decades. While federal prisons remain overcrowded and underfunded, private ICE contractors stand to collect record-breaking contracts, bankrolled by taxpayers.
The companies getting these contracts — GEO Group, CoreCivic, and other private operators — are the same ones that have spent millions to support Trump and his allies. That money isn’t charity; it’s an investment, paying off with massive new government contracts.
The pattern is unmistakable. Instead of fixing a broken, overcrowded prison system, Congress has prioritized expanding detention for migrants — all while funneling profits to political donors. This isn’t about making America safer; it’s about rewarding powerful corporations that help bankroll political campaigns.
If we really care about justice and public safety, we should be demanding accountability for these billions — not letting private interests write themselves a blank check.