Billions of dollars of taxpayer money flowing to private equity firms contracted for detention, surveillance of immigrants

A new report released by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) examines how a handful of private equity firms are playing an outsized role in the deportation and surveillance of millions of immigrants in the United States. “Revenue over Refuge: Private Equity in Immigrant Detention”reveals that billions of dollars of taxpayer money are being funneled to private equity-owned companies operating in the immigrant detention and surveillance industry. As president-elect Donald Trump promises to increase deportations in his coming term, these companies stand to profit even more.

Drawing on capital from pension funds, foundations, endowments, insurance companies, and other institutional investors, private equity firms including HIG Capital and American Securities have invested heavily in companies servicing immigrant detention facilities and migrant shelters around the U.S. Across the detention and surveillance economy, private equity owned-companies provide services including facility management, healthcare, biometrics, and food service.

Despite the fact that detention alternatives cost taxpayers less, private equity firms are massively profiting from immigrant detention. According to the report, 63 percent of federally-designated U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities contract with private equity-owned companies for a range of services.

“Private equity firms stand to rake in billions of dollars in taxpayer money from the Trump administration’s incendiary immigration policies in the coming years,” said Azani Creeks, Senior Research & Campaign Coordinator at PESP and author of the report. “Analysis has shown that detention can be as much as 20 times more expensive than alternative programs, but private equity firms and the corrections industry profit when more immigrants are forcibly detained in their facilities. If city and federal governments are determined to maintain detention systems, they ought to prioritize awarding contracts to entities without a profit motive in order to decrease risks to immigrants’ safety and wellbeing.”

A number of the private equity-owned companies profiled in the report have faced allegations of providing substandard services to the immigrants in their care. In the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Laredo Processing Center in Texas, immigrant detainees complained of “inedible food and undrinkable, foul-smelling water” provided by H.I.G. Capital-owned TKC Holdings.

“Time and again, private equity’s relentless drive for profits has resulted in the exploitation of the vulnerable,” said Creeks. “From hiking rents for the elderly and disabled in manufactured housing to forcing incarcerated people to pay exorbitant prices to communicate with loved ones, this industry cannot be relied on to put people ahead of profits. Private equity should not be anywhere near such a vulnerable population as immigrants in detention facilities.”