Several private prison stocks have been skyrocketing since Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. Trump has vowed mass deportations, and his campaign spokesperson on Wednesday said "millions" would be deported on day one.
"One HUGE winner from Trump's win: Private prison companies GEO Group Inc. and CoreCivic Inc.," observed Bloomberg News reporter Steven Dennis on Wednesday. "Their stocks, which could benefit from Trump's plans for rounding up millions of immigrants, rocketed higher today 41% and 29% respectively."
Thomson Reuters Foundation journalist Avi Asher-Schapiro also on Wednesday, posted the stock's performance over the past five days, which shows it jumped over 26%. He writes: "Private prison giant Geo Group —which already has over a billion dollars in ICE contracts to manage immigration detention facilities—sees its stock soar on Trump's win."
Pointing to an earnings call transcript from August, he notes the company "also administers the 'Intensive Supervision Appearance Program' which is GPS monitoring of migrants."
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"Now, it's 175,000 people. If the GOP-backed House Bill becomes law, that could expand to 7 million."
Ohio Capitol Journal Editor-in-Chief David DeWitt noted, "To deport 20 million people [a number Trump has claimed], they need to build massive camps - deportation, detention…camps where people are concentrated… to handle such massive numbers. Brokers are speculating a nice windfall for a private prison giant on the backs of millions of families being put in camps"
At Thompson Reuters' Context, Asher-Schapiro co-wrote an article last week explaining how Geo has donated over a half-million dollars to support Trump's re-election efforts.
"GEO Group's political action committee moved early this year to donate a maximum $5,000 to the Trump campaign, in addition to a $500,000 donation from a GEO subsidiary to a pro-Trump group, according to an analysis from CREW's [Robert] Maguire and Lauren White."
CREW is the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
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"The company also not only donated to his 2017 inauguration, but moved its annual corporate event to one of his properties, White said."
"They have not only been fuelling Trump's political aspirations, but they have been putting money directly in Trump's pocket by using his businesses in a pretty conspicuous way," White also said.
The Atlantic's David Frum is a Never-Trump Republican who announced Wednesday he "De-registered as a Republican today."
Responding to the chart of Geo Group's stock skyrocketing, he remarked sardonically: "Someone's got to run the deportation camps."
On Wednesday, NBC News explored how Trump may execute his deportation plan, and highlight one of his recent quotes about immigrants: "We're like a garbage can for the world."
Watch the video below or at this link.
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