(Illustration by Ren Velez / POGO)

In the first full year of President Donald Trump’s second term, many of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) top contractors saw massive year-over-year increases in the money they are making from the agency, according to a POGO Investigates, the news reporting division of the Project On Government Oversight, and Investigative Reporting Workshop (IRW) analysis of federal contracting data.

Many of these companies or their executives have made significant political donations, lobbied on a law that is massively boosting ICE’s budget, hired former ICE officials, or sometimes all of the above.

“They are simply relying on good-old shoulder rubbing,” said Nancy Hiemstra, a Stony Brook University professor who co-authored the book Immigration Detention Inc. with Deirdre Conlon, referring to the ICE contractors. She says these tactics can gain the companies favored treatment by government officials, whose attitude may be, according to Hiemstra, “‘Hey, I know you, wink wink, I’ll throw this contract at you.’”

Four of the top 10 ICE contractors have seen their ICE revenues more than triple compared to the last year under President Joe Biden. Acquisition Logistics, the ICE contractor ranked third in terms of agency revenue, has never previously contracted with the agency. Four of these 10 companies, their corporate political action committees, or their executives donated hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in total sums to Trump-aligned PACs during or after the 2024 campaign, or to Trump’s inauguration committee. Two of the 10 — CSI Aviation and Palantir Technologies — saw their ICE revenue more than triple, and their executives were a source of significant political contributions.

An ICE spokesperson told POGO and IRW in an email that the agency executes its “mission with the highest standards of integrity and transparency” and follows “the law to the letter in our contracting practices,” basing its contract awards “on mission requirements, contractor performance, and value to the taxpayer.”

Charles Tiefer, a University of Baltimore law professor and contracting expert, said the huge contracting growth for some of these companies that have donated could be a red flag.

“When the connection between giving Trump money and getting contracts is so direct and clear, you are not talking about inefficiency or waste anymore,” Tiefer said. “You are talking about corruption.”

Whether there’s a relationship between political contributions and contracts is an issue that’s long been on the national radar. One 2023 peer-reviewed academic study found “company donations somewhat increase the risk of favoritism in government contracting, while big donations to the party of the president substantially increase these risks, especially when the awarding agency is highly politicized (i.e., least insulated from the president).” And ICE, during this administration, is very much at the center of one of the White House’s top priorities.

When the connection between giving Trump money and getting contracts is so direct and clear, you are not talking about inefficiency or waste anymore. You are talking about corruption.

— Charles Tiefer, University of Baltimore law professor

Experts have argued, even if it’s hard to make a direct causal connection, that contributions may help companies maintain or gain access to policymakers in Washington. The Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that getting greater access, on its own, is legal.

One example of a company raising such questions around contracts and political contributions is Palantir Technologies, whose data analytics capabilities are helping ICE identify immigrants to arrest. Palantir saw its top officials contribute millions of dollars.

In December 2024, the month after the election, Palantir CEO Alex Karp gave $1 million to the Super PAC MAGA, Inc. and then another $1 million to the Trump inauguration committee, even though Karp had previously donated to Kamala Harris’ campaign. Overall, Karp and his then-senior advisor Jacob Helberg (who is now a Trump administration official) donated a total of nearly $3.9 million to Trump-aligned PACs and Trump’s inauguration. Palantir has also donated an unknown amount of funds towards the White House’s East Wing ballroom project, according to a donor list provided by the White House.

Now ranked 10th, Palantir’s revenue from ICE increased 297% from the year before Trump’s second inauguration, ballooning to $81.1 million. (Palantir has also seen its federal contracts boom over the last year across the government.)

“We’re very proud of our growing work with the U.S. government,” a Palantir spokesperson told POGO and IRW in an emailed statement, noting that the company’s commercial business has been growing faster than its government work overall. The spokesperson did not address questions about contributions.

ICE’s Number One Contractor

The company with the highest amount of ICE contract revenue is Albuquerque, New Mexico-based CSI Aviation, which provides ICE with both domestic flights and international removal flights.

The company provides an example where political spending, lobbying, hiring former ICE employees, and skyrocketing ICE revenue are all present. Chief Executive Officer Allen Weh, along with his wife and daughter, also CSI corporate officers, contributed a total of $460,000 to Trump’s 2024 campaign. The company also hosted a campaign rally for Donald Trump days before the 2024 election.

Their support appears to have paid off. In the year since Trump was inaugurated, CSI Aviation has seen its revenues rise by 238% compared to the year before, going from $363.9 million to $1.23 billion.

R. Crawford Moore, CSI Aviation’s corporate counsel, said in an email that “nothing could be further from the truth” in response to any suggestion that political donations and activities have anything to do with the company’s work with ICE, partly because the company was providing services to DHS during the Biden administration.

Moore also said that CEO Weh’s political giving to Trump also occurred in the 2016 presidential election cycle when the company was not providing services to DHS (CSI would, however, later provide services to ICE in Trump’s first term).

“While he keeps politics and business separate, he makes no apologies for his support and admiration for the current president, and for what he has accomplished to enhance the Republic we are all blessed to live in,” said Moore, referring to Allen Weh.

In addition to political giving, CSI, along with ICE detention contractors GEO Group and CoreCivic, disclosed lobbying on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law triples ICE’s annual budget, making it the most lavishly funded law enforcement agency in the United States. The latter two companies have also lobbied on the homeland security spending bill for fiscal year 2026 and issues related to ICE.

Boom Times for ICE’s Biggest Contractors

Tennessee-based CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison and detention center operators in the U.S., is ICE’s fifth-largest contractor and has benefited from an influx of ICE funding. CoreCivic’s ICE awards increased 45% since Trump took office, from $185.3 million in the year before to about $269 million in 2025. CoreCivic spent $3,690,000 lobbying the federal government in 2025.

“CoreCivic’s political and government relations activities are designed to educate federal, state and local officials on the benefits of partnership corrections,” company spokesperson Ryan Gustin said in an emailed statement. “While we don't provide specifics about financial relationships beyond what we provide in our publicly available financial and lobbying disclosures, it’s important to note that our company does not, under longstanding policy, lobby for or against policies or legislation that would determine the basis for or duration of an individual’s incarceration or detention.”

This boost in ICE revenue also comes after CoreCivic contributed $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration. Its then-CEO Damon Hininger (who remained the company’s board chairman until January 1, 2026) gave $306,931 to Trump-aligned PACs during the 2024 campaign.

Gustin did not address a question about political contributions.

CoreCivic’s boost in ICE revenue isn’t an outlier. In the year since Trump’s second inauguration, ICE spent money on 679 companies. However, ICE’s spending on its top 10 contractors became more concentrated, with almost 70% — about $3.8 billion out of roughly $5.4 billion — going to its top 10 contractors.

This comes as ICE’s spending on contracts increased by about 69% from the year before Trump’s second inauguration to the year after. POGO and IRW examined ICE contract dollars obligated from January 20, 2025 to January 19, 2026, and the previous 365-day period, using data downloaded from USAspending.gov. (See the “Methodology” for details.)

Tiefer, who served on the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, said ICE increasingly contracting with a small group of companies points to an administration pushing to carry out its agenda by rushing contracts out with little competition.

CoreCivic, Palantir, and GEO Group, which is ICE’s second-largest contractor running a network of ICE detention centers, have been boosted by new no-bid contracts and contract modifications.

GEO’s Executive Chairman George Zoley has said these are among the deals that will lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional GEO Group revenue per year. GEO Group’s direct ICE revenue stayed relatively flat, dropping less than one percent from $713 million from the year before Trump’s inauguration to $710 million in the one year after. This does not count GEO’s revenue from ICE subcontracts, such as with CSI Aviation. The company says its ICE Air services “steadily increased throughout 2025.”

‘Hey, I know you, wink wink, I’ll throw this contract at you.’

— Nancy Hiemstra, co-author of Immigration Detention Inc.

GEO’s executives, its political action committee, and a subsidiary contributed over $1 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign, and the company donated $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration committee, according to Federal Election Committee records. The company has hired several high-level ICE officials over the years. One of those, David Venturella, a former GEO senior vice president and consultant, went back to work at DHS in the second Trump administration. GEO Group also hired former Trump campaign manager Christopher LaCivita last summer to lobby on “issues regarding contracts related to detention centers.”

GEO Group did not respond to a request for comment. But the company sees more ICE work on the horizon.

“We are in active discussions with ICE about all of our facilities,” GEO’s Zoley said last week during an investor call. “We do expect more activations [of detention centers] in '26 and more activity that will drive our financial results.”

In response to a question about whether GEO Group would get involved in a plan to convert warehouses into large-scale ICE detention centers, Zoley said GEO Group has a relationship with a company eligible to win those contract awards. “We’re looking at some sites, predominantly in the Sun Belt states, predominantly in red states, to be very frank about it,” he said.

A Controversial Business

These contractors are tied to some of ICE’s most controversial operations, such as ICE detention, where deaths and facility conditions have drawn concern and scrutiny, as well as privacy concerns with surveillance. In at least one case in 2025, ICE’s top contractor found itself connected to an instance where the Trump administration potentially violated a court order.

Last March, one of CSI’s subcontractors flew people in ICE custody to El Salvador despite a court order blocking DHS from removing them from the country. Democratic lawmakers sought answers from CSI Aviation about its ICE flights, including those flights to El Salvador. In a previously unreported letter, CSI Aviation refused to answer the lawmakers’ questions, directing congressional queries to ICE and DHS.

“We refer all inquiries about government contracts that we may be involved with to the respective contracting agency for their determination of an appropriate reply,” CSI’s Crawford told POGO and IRW. “This is a protocol we respect and adhere to.”

Nonetheless, the lawmakers responded that CSI’s position is “misguided” because Congress’s “penetrating and far-reaching oversight extends to the oversight of Federal contracts.” An ICE spokesperson told POGO and IRW that “ICE complies with all judicial directives and congressional oversight requirements.”

In 2025, more people died in connection with ICE detention — 32 — than in any year since 2004 as the number being detained grew to record highs. Since Trump’s inauguration, twelve people have died in or after being detained in GEO Group’s ICE detention centers, six in CoreCivic facilities, and three in Acquisition Logistics’ sole facility, according to a running tally of ICE-related deaths by immigrant rights attorney Andrew Free.

Tiefer and others have critiqued the reliance on for-profit companies to provide many of these functions, arguing they have an incentive to cut costs, such as healthcare.

Maintaining or boosting profit margins by holding down the cost of services comes at the expense “of the living conditions for the men, women and children of all ages being detained there,” Tiefer said.

CoreCivic spokesperson Gustin pushed back on that claim. “We don’t cut corners on care, staff, or training, which meets, and in many cases exceeds, our government partners’ standards,” said Gustin. “Our facilities are subject to multiple layers of oversight and are monitored very closely by our government partners to ensure full compliance with policies and procedures, including any applicable detention standards.” (POGO has recently reported a steep drop in ICE inspections of detention facilities.)

“We know this is a highly charged, emotional issue for many people, but the fact is the services we provide help the government solve problems in ways it could not do alone,” Gustin said. “We are deeply saddened by and take very seriously the passing of any individual in our care.”

“ICE takes all allegations regarding detention conditions, deaths in custody, and contractor conduct extremely seriously,” an ICE spokesperson told POGO and IRW. “The agency investigates all incidents thoroughly and holds contractors accountable to strict standards.”

The agency spokesperson said it is ICE's “longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care” as soon as a person enters its custody, and that ICE is “committed to the health, safety, and rights of all individuals in its custody.”

Published with The Project on Government Oversight

IRW has worked closely with the team at POGO since mid-2025 to produce in-depth journalism.

https://www.pogo.org/