We're Letting Private Prison Companies Get Rich Off Running Concentration Camps. We Don't Have to.
Phone scripts and email tools to push the states to tax detention camp profits
We’re starting to see state-level lawmakers getting more aggressive and more creative in doing what they can to throw a wrench in the deportation machine. In California, Assemblymember Matt Haney, working with the California Immigrant Policy Center, has introduced first-in-the-nation legislation (AB1633) that would impose a 50% tax on profits from private ICE detention centers and redirect the money to immigrant services. Now New Jersey has followed suit, with Assemblymembers Ravi Bhalla and Katie Brennan and Senator Raj Mukherji proposing a similar bill in A4300/S3616.
Detainees at these camps and outside inspectors have reported overcrowding, inadequate medical care and access to food and water, and unsanitary conditions. Since the beginning of Trump’s term, there have been more than three dozen deaths, including at least one suspected murder by guards.
And the companies running these concentration camps are getting rich off of it. CoreCivic has inked contracts to run detention facilities worth over $680 million in taxpayer dollars since last January. They reported an annual revenue of $2.2 billion in 2025, up 13% in one year. GeoGroup came in at $2.6 billion in revenue and grew their profits by nearly 700%. They’ve been awarded more than $1 billion of our money for detention centers and services, all while we’re being told the government can’t do anything to make health care and child care affordable. Their CEOS are assuring their investors 2026 will only be “better.”
While there are some serious limits on how much state governments can push back on the deportation machine, there is one power that is clearly available to them: the ability to tax corporations doing business within our borders. The detention camp tax is a legally sound way of holding them accountable that gets us funds we need to repair the damage they’re doing... and hopefully deters them from expanding in our neighborhoods.
Let’s reach out to our legislators and governor and ask them to pass a detention camp profits tax in our state. We can find call scripts below, or send this email by texting SIGN PBYCBG to 50409.
Last updated 2/23/26.
PHONE SCRIPTS
You can find contact info for your legislators here and for your governor here. Please adjust, add, and reword as you would see fit - you will be most effective speaking in your own words!
Hi, my name is _________, and I’m a constituent from (city, zip). (If voicemail, leave street address).
I’m calling on _______ to support AB1633/A4300/legislation like California’s AB1633 in our state, aggressively taxing the profits of companies running detention camps here. CEOs and shareholders should not be getting rich from taxpayer dollars off locking up our friends and neighbors.
This is a way to hold them accountable and start to repair the damage they’re doing to our communities.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
EMAIL LANGUAGE
We can send this message directly to our state legislators and governor by texting SIGN PBYCBG to 50409. We can also find contact info for legislators here and for governors here.
Even with this administration doing its best to keep their abuses out of the public eye, we learn every day of new horrors in the detention camp archipelago. They’re overcrowded and unsanitary, the folks they’ve snatched off the street aren’t getting adequate food or water, they can’t get health care. Now, there’s even measles outbreaks. This is what we’re subjecting little children to. 38 people that we know of have died in immigration detention since Trump took office again, including at least one alleged to have been murdered by guards. These places are becoming black holes for basic rights and basic human decency.
And in many cases, private companies are running these camps and making bank off of us to do it. CoreCivic has inked contracts to run detention facilities worth over $680 million in taxpayer dollars since last January. They just reported an annual revenue of $2.2 billion in 2025, up 13% in one year. GeoGroup came in at $2.6 billion in revenue and grew their profits by nearly 700%. They’ve been awarded more than $1 billion of our money for detention centers and services, all while we’re being told the government can’t afford to make health care and child care affordable. It’s obscene.
While it is a challenge for state governments to effectively take on the deportation machine, there is one power that is clearly available to them: the ability to tax corporations doing business within our borders. We must make use of it
Innovative lawmakers and activists have proposed legislation, California’s AB1633 and New Jersey’s A4300, to aggressively tax the profits of privately-run detention centers and redirect those revenues to immigration-related services. This is a legally sound path towards holding companies accountable for what they’re doing in these camps, and it will help us get our money back to cover the costs of repairing the damage to our communities.
Please support and help pass into law a detention camp profits tax in our state. CEOs and shareholders can’t be allowed to get rich off the taxpayers by locking up our friends and neighbors.