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CoreCivic sold four detention centers to the federal government for $2.2 billion last quarter, and its chief executive is now pressing ICE to buy more before Democratic majorities take over Congress in January.
CoreCivic ICE detention sales have become one of the fastest ways the administration is adding permanent detention space, and the company wants the next round closed quickly. On its third-quarter earnings call, CoreCivic President and CEO Lucibeth Mayberry said, “We would urge the ICE administration to move quickly,” adding, “They have a need for capacity. We have the capacity. There’s no reason to wait,” Tennessee Lookout reported on Nov. 10. The pitch came days after the Nov. 3 midterms, which Tennessee Lookout said produced Democratic majorities in the House and Senate that will be sworn in in January. For detained immigrants, their families and the lawyers who represent them, the outcome will shape where people are held, and for how long that capacity lasts.
CoreCivic ICE detention sales so far
CoreCivic’s own Nov. 4 earnings release lays out the scale. The company said it sold four detention facilities holding 7,187 beds to the federal government during the third quarter for gross proceeds of $2.2 billion. Those sales produced a $1.77 billion gain on the sale of real estate, which pushed quarterly net income to $1.34 billion. That works out to roughly $306,000 per bed, a calculation from the company’s figures. The release says talks with ICE about buying more CoreCivic facilities are in preliminary stages, and its updated 2026 guidance assumes no further sales.
| Measure | Q3 2025 | Q3 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Total revenue | $580.4 million | $744.1 million |
| Net income | $26.3 million | $1,344.1 million |
| Adjusted net income | $26.2 million | $45.7 million |
| Occupancy | 76.7% | 84.0% |
The prices have drawn questions. Tennessee Lookout, citing an investigation by KARE 11, reported that CoreCivic offered its shuttered Appleton, Minn., prison to the state of Minnesota for $75 million in 2025, and that ICE paid $485.6 million for it a year later. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has called for a congressional investigation of that sale, the outlet reported. Mayberry, in the company’s release, credited the quarter to “increased demand for our services” from ICE.
Why ownership changes the math for a new Congress
The urgency makes sense once you separate money from buildings. The 2025 reconciliation law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, set aside $45 billion for immigration detention, available through September 2029, according to Axios. Because that money is already enacted and spans several years, a Democratic majority cannot simply decline to fund it in next year’s budget. Undoing it would take a new law, which the president could veto. That limit is explored in more detail in the funding constraints facing a Democratic Congress.
What a new majority can do is shape how money is spent going forward, through conditions in annual DHS spending bills, hearings, subpoenas and inspector general referrals. A purchase that closes before January is far harder to unwind than a pending deal. A lease or service contract can expire, but a building the government owns stays in the federal inventory under any future administration. The practical effect is that each completed sale locks in detention capacity that outlasts the political fight over ICE’s tactics.
Nothing in the administration’s public statements suggests a pause. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote the day after the election that “Deportations will continue,” the Associated Press and Tennessee Lookout reported, even as President Trump told CBS’s “60 Minutes” his crackdown may have been “too tough.” The White House has promised no slowdown in enforcement after the midterms.
What it means for people held in these facilities
Where a person is detained is not a neutral detail in immigration law. The detention location usually determines which immigration court hears the case and which federal circuit’s precedent governs it, which can decide bond eligibility and the outcome of habeas petitions. Large facilities in remote areas also make it harder for families and lawyers to reach clients, a recurring theme in oversight fights such as county inspections at the Otay Mesa detention center. Local challenges to new sites, like San Antonio’s environmental review fight, have become one of the few tools opponents have to slow expansion.
The next signals are concrete: whether ICE announces more purchases before the new Congress is seated on Jan. 3, whether incoming committee chairs open inquiries into sale prices, and whether CoreCivic’s February guidance reflects new deals. Competitors are likely to make the same pitch, since the closing window is the same for every company selling beds.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice.
Sources
- CoreCivic, “CoreCivic Reports Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results” (Nov. 4, 2026)
- Tennessee Lookout, “‘Move quickly’: CoreCivic urges ICE to seal detention deals after Democrats win big” (Nov. 10, 2026)
- Associated Press, “Immigration arrests go on unabated despite Trump’s misgivings after the GOP’s midterm wipeout” (Nov. 11, 2026)
- Axios, “How the GOP spending bill will fund immigration enforcement” (July 3, 2025)
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