Anti-Trump activists protested Saturday morning near the Boca Raton headquarters of GEO Group, one of the country’s largest private prison contractors, demanding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ends its business ties with companies housing immigrants.
“Detaining people for profit is morally indefensible,” said Myra Kremenitzer, founder of Indivisible’s Boca Raton chapter, which rallied about 100 demonstrators.
“The GEO Group has built a business model around the suffering of vulnerable individuals, many of whom are fleeing violence, persecution, and poverty,” he said. “This is not justice — it’s exploitation.”
Indivisible Boca Raton is part of a national grassroots movement founded in response to Trump's first election victory in 2016.
The protest comes on the heels of a report issued last week that found the country’s two largest private immigration detention companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, along with their subsidiaries and executives, contributed nearly $2.8 million to Trump’s 2024 election efforts and inaugural fund.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics said 90% of the nation’s immigrant detention centers are managed by private, for-profit companies.
They say those companies are expected to collect a windfall of revenue and profit from the recent passage of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill Act.” The tax and spending package include $45 billion for ICE to pay private contractors to implement mass detention of immigrants.
"Our political engagement efforts are largely educational, with the overarching objective of informing lawmakers and policymakers of the long-standing quality services we have delivered on behalf of federal and state government agencies for over three decades under both Democratic and Republican administrations," according to a company statement posted to its website.
The federal government contracts with the GEO Group to operate 14 ICE processing centers facilities around the country. The centers include the Broward Transitional Center, according to the GEO Group.
The company also said it “has always been committed to protecting the Human Rights of the persons entrusted to its care.”
In its latest quarterly earnings report, the global company reported net income of almost $20 million in this year’s first quarter with revenue of $604 million.
Human rights groups and activists have long criticized the company for profiting off a system they say denies due process and basic dignity to detainees.
Indivisible’s Kremenitzer said his group wants the Trump administration to terminate ICE contracts with private prison operaters, including the GEO group and order the release of detained immigrants. It wants Congress to investigate the role of private contractors in immigration enforcement.
“It’s immoral for ICE to destroy lives without due process,” Kremenitzer told WLRN in a statement. “Aiding and abetting that dirty work for profit, like the GEO Group, is reprehensible.”
