Who Profits From Immigration Enforcement: Major Companies Doing Business With ICE

From private detention operators to airlines, tech firms, and facility contractors, a vast network of businesses earns billions through contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—raising persistent questions about profit, accountability, and human cost.

By: Haitian Prime News|January 22, 2026|Washington, D.C.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not operate in isolation. Its detention, deportation, surveillance, and enforcement activities rely on a wide ecosystem of private companies that provide everything from prison management and transportation to data analytics, telecommunications, food services, and facility maintenance. Collectively, these contracts are worth billions of dollars annually.

Public records, federal procurement databases, and investigative reporting show that immigration enforcement has increasingly become a privatized industry. While ICE frames its work as law enforcement, critics argue that the outsourcing of core government functions has created financial incentives that reward expanded detention and deportation—often at the expense of families and communities.

Among the most prominent contractors are private prison corporations. CoreCivic and The GEO Group have long operated immigration detention facilities under ICE contracts, generating substantial revenue tied directly to detention capacity and daily bed quotas. These companies have faced repeated scrutiny over conditions, oversight, and the financial motivations behind detention expansion.

Transportation and deportation logistics represent another critical sector. Charter airlines such as Global Crossing Airlines have conducted deportation flights on behalf of ICE, forming an essential link in removal operations. These flights are typically shielded from public visibility, even as they move thousands of people out of the country each year.

ICE also contracts with a wide range of security, staffing, and support firms. Companies such as MVM, Inc. have provided guard services, transportation security, and operational support. Facility service providers handle construction, maintenance, communications infrastructure, and utilities across detention centers nationwide.

Technology firms play an increasingly influential role. Data analytics and surveillance companies, including Palantir Technologies, have been reported to support federal law-enforcement databases and case-management systems used by ICE. Civil liberties groups argue that these tools enable mass monitoring and accelerate enforcement actions while limiting transparency.

Beyond direct enforcement contracts, some corporations engage with ICE through compliance and cooperation programs. ICE’s IMAGE (ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers) program includes major employers that voluntarily collaborate with the agency on workforce verification and employment compliance. While participation does not necessarily involve detention or deportation contracts, advocates note that such partnerships still normalize corporate alignment with immigration enforcement.

It is important to note that ICE contracting is extensive and fragmented. Hundreds of companies—ranging from multinational corporations to local vendors—have held ICE contracts at various times. The list continues to change as contracts are awarded, renewed, or terminated.

What unites these arrangements is a shared structure: enforcement is treated as a service to be delivered, billed, and scaled. For executives and shareholders, the consequences are measured in revenue. For affected families and communities, the consequences are lived in separation, instability, and long-term trauma.

The system, its defenders argue, is not personal—it is business. Critics counter that when human confinement and removal become profit centers, moral responsibility cannot be separated from contractual obligation.

Sources

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Federal Procurement and Contracting Records (DHS)

Fortune Magazine, reporting on Fortune 500 companies with active ICE contracts

Federal Compass, DHS and ICE awarded contract database

The Intercept, The Marshall Project, and Sludge investigative reporting on ICE contractors

ICE.gov, IMAGE employer partnership program disclosures