Profitable Violence: A New Era of the Border Industrial Complex

Last year was a bonanza for private companies doing business with Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Never had contracts been so lucrative, never had so much money been made.

In 2025, CBP and ICE signed 7,331 contracts worth $14.2 billion. When I first investigated this, I figured there would be an increase over 2024, given all that had transpired during Donald Trump’s first year back in office. But I wasn’t sure, since Joe Biden’s presidency, from January 2021 to January 2025, had signed a record number of contracts. The total for his four years was $32.3 billion. The Democratic president had topped his predecessor (the first Trump presidency) by a startling $11 billion. In 2023, he set the record for most contracts by any president for one year at $9.8 billion.

No one had even come close to that number—until now.

https://www.theborderchronicle.com/p/profitable-violence-a-new-era-of?utm_source=substack&publication_id=373432&post_id=184678765&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=5f9foq&triedRedirect=true