Protests have grown tense and often chaotic at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, N.J., in recent days, as activists and officials express anger at reports of inhumane conditions faced by immigrants being held there. At times, federal immigration officers have responded to the demonstrations with pepper spray and tear gas.
For Silky Shah, who leads the nonprofit Detention Watch Network and monitors conditions inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities nationwide, what concerns her most is what the public can't readily see.
"What's happening behind closed doors is that much more horrifying. People being served rotten food. Complete medical neglect. Absolutely no support for people who are inside," Shah says. "That is not unique to Delaney Hall. That is happening everywhere."
In statements to NPR and WNYC, DHS and the private prison contractor GEO Group deny the allegations at Delaney Hall, calling them a "politically motivated campaign by outside groups to dismantle ICE." But detainees across the country have sued over poor conditions at immigrant detention centers.
About a third of people in immigration detention are in facilities run by GEO Group. This week, as former GEO Group executive David Venturella begins his tenure as acting director of ICE, the company and the agency appear more closely linked than ever.
A reliance on private prison companies
GEO Group also operates state prisons, but about half its revenue comes from its contracts with ICE. The company has positioned itself as a one-stop shop for President Trump's mass deportation agenda. It operates nearly two dozen detention facilities nationwide, provides transportation services and electronic monitoring through a subsidiary called BI Incorporated.
"ICE detention in this country relies on this multibillion dollar network of public and private sector interests that profit from the detention of undocumented immigrants," says Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
After Trump took office again last year, GEO Group and other private prison companies such as CoreCivic raced to meet the government's demand for more detention beds, including re-opening long vacant former prisons.
It has paid off: In 2025, GEO Group made more than $250 million in profit, a nearly 700% increase from the previous year.
"Last year was the most successful period for new business wins in our company's history, and we expect 2026 to be a very active year as well," GEO Group CEO George Zoley said on the company's most recent earnings call in May.
Advocates, journalists and investigators have documented substandard conditions at ICE detention centers – public and private alike – for years. And some legal experts warn that reliance on private companies to house detainees incentivizes cost-cutting.
"Private prisons introduce the profit motive into the equation," says Katherine Hawkins, a senior legal analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group.
GEO Group declined an interview request, but told NPR in a statement that its detention centers are monitored by ICE to ensure compliance with government standards, and that the company provides around-the-clock access to medical care, legal and family visits and balanced meals, among other services.
"We are proud of the role our company has played for 40 years to support the law enforcement mission of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement," the statement said.
'An additional shroud of secrecy'
Private prison companies are not beholden to the same public records requirements the government is subject to, and Eisen says that can reduce accountability.
"When there are deaths in detention, it is oftentimes harder for journalists, the public, to learn about what happened inside," Eisen says. "There's an additional shroud of secrecy when we're talking about corporations managing prisons and jails and detention centers."
Privatization can also allow companies to point questions of accountability toward the government and for the government to point them back toward the company. In its statement to NPR, for instance, GEO Group said any additional questions should be directed to ICE.
And at a congressional hearing this week, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin refused to commit to giving the New Jersey Department of Health full access to Delaney Hall. The state has sued GEO Group asking for that. A similar battle over access to a detention center run by GEO Group has been ongoing in Washington state.
"They don't always have unfettered access to the detention center," Mullin said at the hearing. "There is a difference between federal facilities … and federal privatized systems."
Mullin said he would give access when he is required by law to do so.
'A revolving door'
Hawkins says the growing level of influence GEO Group has in the immigration detention industry is concerning.
"There's a bit of a revolving door between ICE detention operations in particular and some of the private prison companies, where the same executives will go from one to the other and back again," she says.
Venturella, taking over the agency this week, has worked on and off for ICE and the agency that preceded it since the 1980s. In 2012, he went to work at GEO Group for about a decade.
Several other senior DHS officials have also had close ties to the company, including White House Border Czar Tom Homan.
"They are absolutely hand in glove," says Scott Shuchart, former assistant director for regulatory affairs and policy at ICE under President Biden and now a private attorney.
"When GEO comes in for a meeting, it feels like a fraternity reunion," he added. "The big private prison companies, GEO and CoreCivic, have long been the career path destination for senior leadership."
Some lawmakers have expressed concern over conflicts of interest. Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote a letter to Venturella, asking whether he would recuse himself from matters that could benefit GEO Group.
In its statement, DHS told NPR that Venturella is a veteran official with "more than 30 years of experience in federal law enforcement operations, border security and immigration policy."
"The Acting ICE Director abides by all ethics requirements," the statement read.
Immigrant advocates are growing increasingly concerned as DHS rapidly expands its private detention network with a surge of federal funding precisely as the agency makes sweeping personnel cuts to the offices in charge of oversight.
"The human consequences of the lack of care with which they are implementing mass deportations and the recklessness with which they've expanded the detention system are really striking to me," Shuchart says.
He says the outcomes are visible: According to the government's own data, 2026 is already the deadliest year in immigration detention since DHS was founded.
Reporter Gwynne Hogan contributed reporting.
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