President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to crack down on mass migration promises to mean big business for private prisons.
Like companies CoreCivic and Geo Group are known for profiting from the growing US prison population, but struck gold after expanding into the operation of detention centers for undocumented immigrants on behalf of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Now investors are betting big that their earnings will rise, sending stocks higher on Wednesday after Trump’s election. Shares in CoreCivic rose 29% and Geo Group gained even more, up 42% in the single session.
Trump and his allies have long attacked the Democratic Party for being too soft on crime and too soft on borders. Elon Musk– himself an immigrant – why he considered the issue of illegal migration as the main argument spending millions Trump in the risky gamble of returning to the White House.
Elon Musk has moved illegal immigration to the top of the Trump agenda
Billionaire and owner X again and again he proclaimed The Democrats were deliberately opening the floodgates southern borderBy strategically targeting Latino migrants from countries like Venezuela, they would be granted asylum and put on a fast track to citizenship in battleground states.
In return, he warned, grateful newly naturalized Americans would vote for Democrats, eventually turning the entire country into a Democratic stronghold like California. (However, exit polls indicate Latino men It was the largest demographic swing from Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024.)
“If Trump doesn’t win, this will be it the last real election America,” Musk told Joe Rogan Election dayand in that Rogan endorsed Trump. “They’re going to legalize the illegal age to make it a swing state and it’s going to be like California everywhere. There’s going to be no escape.”
Musk is likely to handle it significant impact in the next administration, the market now expects companies like CoreCivic and Geo Group to make gains.
One million immigrants will be deported in the first wave
Investors bet on a boom They have earnings related to ICE good reason. During the Trump administration, the federal government expanded the immigration detention system by more than 50 percent, a move that “benefited private prison companies,” he said. the findings American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The number of migrants arrested reached one 55,000 peak in 2019
It didn’t end with Biden’s election either. Even he sent immediately In an executive order ending private prison contracts with the federal government when he took office in January 2021, Biden made one exception: immigration detention facilities.
After Trump’s election on Tuesday, the new president-elect must now live up to it promising launching “the biggest deportation in the history of our country”. Vice President JD Vance suggested himself start from 1 million undocumented migrants “and then we can go from there”.
There is only one catch that can throw a wrench in CoreCivic and Geo Group. Cities and states must cooperate with ICE, which is not a given. some speculate Trump will use the threat withholding federal funding as a means of forcing compliance.
luck CoreCivic and Geo Group were contacted for comment, but a spokesperson could not be reached by press time.
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