Some of the world’s largest private security firms are making millions by aiding Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) mass deportations — and now that the Trump administration’s megabill has granted ICE a multibillion-dollar windfall, they are lining up for an even bigger cut.
That includes private equity–backed Allied Universal, the private security giant and the nation’s third-largest private employer, which provides vehicles and armed security guards to ICE through its subsidiary, G4S Secure Solutions.
Compared to other immigration detention vendors — like the private firms building and operating so-called “Alligator Alcatraz,” President Donald Trump’s new Florida detention camp, which will cost an estimated $450 million a year — Allied Universal and the myriad security firms that provide “transportation” services and private security guards to ICE have faced less scrutiny.
Yet they are a keystone of ICE’s expanding deportation machine, providing vehicles and personnel to transport immigrants to deportation flights and far-flung detention centers. In some cases, ICE’s private security guards have been accused of arresting people themselves, in violation of federal law.
Trump’s megabill, which he signed into law this month, carved out $170 billion for immigration enforcement, including nearly $30 billion in funding for ICE operations, more than tripling ICE’s current annual budget and likely supercharging ICE’s raids and disappearings, which have inflicted terror on immigrant communities and sparked nationwide protests in recent months.
When Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, a former private prison consultant with ties to right-wing paramilitary groups, celebrated this historic…
Auteur: Katya Schwenk
