One of the largest private prison operators in the U.S. is also the biggest beneficiary of immigrant detention and surveillance.

Since 2003, The GEO Group has led the way as the top ICE contract awardee, earning over four billion dollars solely on immigration enforcement operated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Over the past eight years, ICE's payment to GEO has increased drastically.

From 2003 to 2014, ICE spent around 100 million dollars per year in contracting to GEO. The spending passed 200 million per year during Trump's second year and came close to 400 million in his last year.

The GEO Group is known for operating a large number of private prisons in the U.S., but what many don't know is that they are also one of the largest financial beneficiaries of the immigration enforcement.

GEO makes money from operating immigrant detention centers and technological surveillance of migrants on the "Alternatives to Detention" (ATD) program.

Migrants monitored through the ATD program are released with conditions of compliance, and GEO's surveillance technologies are used to enforce their compliance by monitoring the migrants' GPS locations, collecting facial biometrics, and their communications.
The treemap above shows a breakdown of ICE spending by purpose, from 2003 to date.


Check out the code I used to make this data analysis and visualization possible.