Private prison operators are marketing their shuttered lockups to federal immigration officials as President Donald Trump pushes for mass deportations, with some facilities nabbing lucrative no-bid contracts.
When Trump, a Republican, took office, politically connected private-prison giants CoreCivic Inc. and The Geo Group Inc. had around 20 idle facilities, partially the result of sentencing reforms that reduced prison populations .
But the push to reopen them has been met with resistance in unexpected places like Leavenworth, Kansas, a town whose name alone evokes a short hand for serving hard time. The Leavenworth facility was mothballed in late 2021 after then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to curb the use of private prisons .
Here's a look at some of the takeaways from an Associated Press report about private prisons in the era of mass deportations.
Demand for bed spurs interest in private prisons