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Investigation

Private Prison Giant Hired ICE Detention Chief

GEO Group hired a top ICE official — one of many over the years — as the company stands to profit from the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

A photo collage with a screenshot of Daniel A. Bible in the center. To the left and right, in the shape of vertical bars, are the Eloy Detention Center and an ICE officer on a filled bus to a detention center, surrounded by dollar signs and upward arrows.

(Photos: C-SPAN (modified); U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Illustration: Leslie Garvey / POGO)

Just days before the 2024 presidential election, a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official left to take a senior job at The GEO Group, a private prison company and the agency’s top contractor, according to a federal ethics document obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). 

The move by Daniel A. Bible, ICE’s top career official in charge of detaining undocumented immigrants, comes amid mass deportation plans by the incoming Trump administration that could promise soaring profits for GEO Group. It’s one of many hires the company has made from ICE’s senior ranks. 

“I’m not surprised,” said Silky Shah, the executive director of the Detention Watch Network, of Bible’s move. She explained that these hires give GEO Group inside intel that allow it to anticipate ICE’s needs and can give it the edge in expanding its contracts. Weeks after Bible left ICE, GEO Group announced it was investing $70 million to bolster its ability to support the agency.

Hiring former ICE officials “will make it so much easier for ICE and GEO to expand detention in all the ways they want to,” Shah said. According to the federal ethics document, Bible’s last day at ICE was October 31, 2024. His change in position was also confirmed on his LinkedIn profile, where he states his title is executive vice president.

GEO Group has faced complaints about inhumane treatment and problems in its detention facilities, many confirmed by independent investigations, with some critics questioning whether these abuses have been enabled by coziness between the agency’s leadership and its top contractor.

An ICE spokesperson acknowledged POGO’s questions but did not provide comment by the time of publication. The GEO Group and Bible did not respond to multiple queries.

GEO Group gets the lion’s share of its revenue from ICE and is poised to see significant growth due to more aggressive immigration enforcement, according to recent financial disclosures and an earnings call with investors two days after the election.

“An Unprecedented Opportunity”

“This is to us an unprecedented opportunity,” said GEO Group’s executive chairman, George Zoley, on that call just after GEO Group’s stock saw among the biggest percentage rise in the U.S. stock market of any U.S. company in the immediate wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s win, according to financial news site Sherwood Media. GEO Group could see an annual revenue boost of $400 million through Trump’s mass deportation plans, according to the company’s November earnings call. In fiscal year 2024, ICE obligated $747.4 million to GEO Group in contracts, according to federal spending data.

In 2024, a mix of GEO’s political action committee, senior executives, and a GEO subsidiary collectively contributed more than $1 million to Trump-aligned political action committees, according to POGO’s review of Federal Election Commission data.

In his high-level ICE role, Bible pressed President Joe Biden last February for more detention beds and technology for monitoring people who do not have permanent authorization to live in the U.S., according to a transcript. GEO Group is the top contractor providing both services and would financially benefit from funding increases. 

Bible joins a long tradition of ICE officials departing to work for the agency’s top contractor.

Prior to his spin through the revolving door, GEO Group fêted Bible to the tune of $1,025 for him to “travel and [have] lunch for [an] employment discussion.” The date of that trip is not disclosed, but the ethics disclosure form, signed by Bible on October 17, 2024, states that Bible notified ICE ethics officials of his then-future employment with GEO Group. 

Bible’s time at ICE included working closely with GEO Group. He spent four years running ICE’s field office in San Antonio, Texas, from 2016 to 2020 where, according to his LinkedIn profile, he oversaw five detention facilities and two family residential centers holding over 7,000 people. A law review article published by Washington University School of Law found high rates of arrests, removals, and detention of noncitizens without convictions or who were deemed as “no threat” by the San Antonio field office compared to other ICE field offices during fiscal year 2019, when Bible was in charge. “These disparities suggest that field offices may be applying their own priorities or discretionary standards,” stated the study authored by Fatma Marouf, a Texas A&M University law school professor.

During Bible’s tenure at ICE, facilities he oversaw — including those run by GEO Group — were among those to face allegations of sexual abuse, medical neglect, and inhumane treatment of people in detention. In 2018, a toddler died after becoming ill at one of the family detention facilities overseen by Bible. (That facility was run by CoreCivic, another private prison and detention company. Although the practice of detaining families was ended under President Biden, the Trump administration’s new “border czar,” Tom Homan, said that family detention centers like those in Texas could return with the new administration.) 

Javier Hidalgo, legal director at RAICES, a Texas-based nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, personally visited many of the detention facilities overseen by the San Antonio field office during Bible’s tenure. He recalled Bible’s lack of responsiveness to problems in the facilities. “Looking at who can we escalate issues to — his name would come up,” Hidalgo said. “And then it would be a dead end.”

“An Extension of the Agency” 

Bible joins a long tradition of ICE officials departing to work for the agency’s top contractor. In 2012, David Venturella, who held the same ICE role Bible recently did, became a GEO Group executive. A head of ICE during the George W. Bush administration, Julie M. Wood, joined GEO Group’s board of directors in 2014. In 2017, ICE Deputy Director Daniel Ragsdale left the agency to become a GEO Group executive. He now works with a former ICE procurement official who joined the company in 2019 and a former ICE senior executive who joined in 2020. In 2022, GEO Group announced that Venturella, its senior vice president for client relations, would be retiring (yet would still consult for GEO Group for two years), to be replaced by Matthew T. Albence, who led ICE during part of the first Trump administration. 

Contractors like GEO Group end up becoming an extension of the agency, but with a buffer from the accountability.

Javier Hidalgo, legal director at RAICES

Back in 2020, several Democratic lawmakers broadly questioned whether ICE was doing enough to “prevent corruption and conflicts of interest” in response to several instances of officials going through the revolving door. In Bible’s case, no public accusations of misconduct against him have been made to POGO’s knowledge. As is the case with all former federal employees, Bible is subject to certain ethics restrictions after leaving government. And, as a former senior executive at ICE, he is barred from attempting to influence ICE for a year, and longer in particular instances, after his departure.

Nonetheless, the pattern of officials flowing to the GEO Group from ICE, and the agency’s significant contracts with the company, adds to the concerns among advocates.

“Contractors like GEO Group end up becoming an extension of the agency, but with a buffer from the accountability,” Hidalgo said, explaining that the closeness of detention contractors and ICE can both deflect and obscure responsibility. 

“It’s almost a black hole,” he said. “And they profit from that.”

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