‘Move quickly’: CoreCivic urges ICE to seal detention deals after Democrats win big

The CEO of Brentwood-based CoreCivic is urging Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to act with speed in inking contracts for immigration detention centers after Democrats scored big wins in last week’s elections.

“We would urge the ICE administration to move quickly,” President and CEO Lucibeth Mayberry said during a quarterly earnings call on Thursday. “They have a need for capacity. We have the capacity. There’s no reason to wait.”

The private prison and immigration detention center operator netted $1.3 billion in its most recent quarter from the sales of four detention centers to the Department of Homeland Security as the second Trump administration ramped up immigrant detentions nationwide. The sales helped bolster publicly-traded company’s’ better-than-predicted profits in the third quarter of this year. 

Mayberry said the company is hoping to sell more. 

“We continue to have discussions with ICE about the potential acquisition of additional CoreCivic detention facilities,” she said, noting the discussions remain preliminary. “However, we do believe additional facility acquisitions continue to be a key element of ICE’s detention strategy.”

Historic Democratic victories on Nov. 3 could put a damper on future ICE deals after members of the newly-elected Democratic majority in the U.S. House and Senate are sworn into office in January. Democratic candidates across the country campaigned on reigning in controversial ICE enforcement tactics that have led to unprecedented numbers of immigrants being detained.

Democrats have pledged scrutiny, investigations and accountability for ICE’s enforcement tactics, which have resulted in tens of thousands of immigrants with no criminal backgrounds held in detention centers, the arrests of U.S. citizens and the deaths of two Americans.

CoreCivic has drawn scrutiny for its own role in the administration’s immigration crackdown, with reports about poor and unsafe conditions at its detention centers and new questions about its sales. 

A recent investigation by a Minneapolis television news station showed CoreCivic offered to sell a shuttered prison in Appleton, Minn. to the State of Minnesota for $75 million in 2025.  A year later, ICE paid $485.6 million for the facility, which is to be used as an immigration detention center. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has called for a Congressional investigation into the sale.

ICE, however, remains the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the nation, boosted over the past two years by more than $240 billion in appropriations to the agency and the U.S. Border Patrol by a GOP-controlled Congress. President Donald Trump, in the days since his party suffered big losses in the election, has offered mixed signals about plans for the agency going forward.

Trump on Sunday said his administration’s aggressive detention deportation policy may have been “too tough” and contributed to the GOP election losses during an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday. However, the president also promoted the architect of his immigration policy, Stephen Miller, as his Chief of Staff. And key administration leaders have signalled the administration will stay the course on its immigration detention and deportation plans.

“Deportations will continue,” Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin wrote on X a day after the midterm elections.