Jul 7, 2026
A private prison operator that President Donald Trump owns stock in has announced it has sold two of its detention centers to the federal government for nearly $1.5 billion.
CoreCivic says two of its California detention facilities have been sold to the government to use as immigration prisons. In a news release, the company said the sale was completed on July 2 and includes the 2,560-bed California City Detention Facility in California City and the 1,994-bed Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
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Although the federal government now owns the facilities, CoreCivic says it will continue to manage both locations as part of its contracts with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The company added that the terms of the contract may be renegotiated now that the federal government owns the properties.
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Trump’s financial disclosure
The sale comes nearly a week after Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure was released, which revealed he also owns stock in GEO Group, another private prison operator that contracts with ICE.
According to the disclosure, Trump began purchasing GEO Group shares just 10 days after his inauguration. Similarly, he first purchased CoreCivic stock in February 2025 and continued to buy and sell shares in both companies throughout the year.
The two companies have posted strong financial results as the Trump administration has expanded immigration detention operations.
GEO Group’s net income surged from $31.9 million in 2024 to $254.3 million in 2025. GEO Group Founder George Zoley told investors the company reached roughly $520 million in annual revenue, marking the most new business the company had won in a single year. First-quarter 2026 earnings are up 17% year-over-year.
CoreCivic earnings have also risen, with full-year income up about 69% to $116.5 million. First- quarter earnings for 2026 show the company is outperforming its 2025 Q4 earnings so far.
In a statement to Moneywise, CoreCivic Public Affairs Senior Director Ryan Gustin said that the latest sale to the federal government is not uncommon and that the process was rigorous and marked with integrity.
“The facility valuations were established through the federal government’s required appraisal process, which is designed to determine objective fair market value,” the statement said in part. “For these specialized properties, independent appraisers used a transparent cost-based methodology grounded in current replacement cost, depreciation, land value and other market-based factors, with the appraisals then reviewed by the government for compliance with federal standards.”
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GEO Group did not respond to Moneywise’s request for comment in time for publication.
The CoreCivic and GEO Group trades are referenced throughout Trump’s financial disclosure but are a small slice of his massive portfolio.
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More sales are on their way
The transactions come as the Trump administration pursues a broader effort to expand federal ownerships of immigration detention facilities.
The strategy is part of the “ICE Detention Reengineering Initiative,” a more than $38 billion plan to increase ICE’s detention capacity and reduce reliance on privately owned prisons. Additional warehouses have been purchased in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Maryland as part of this effort.
But there have been signs the initiative isn’t going as planned. In June, the New York Times reported that ICE was planning on selling or transferring seven of the 11 industrial warehouses it bought to convert into prisons.
Even so, CoreCivic has kept the door open for future sales, saying it’s in ongoing talks with ICE about providing additional detention facilities.
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Rinna Diamantakos is an assigning editor at Moneywise.com. A versatile journalist, she has experience as a writer, editor and producer. Her work has focused on politics, business and financial news.
