GEO Group
The GEO Group is a publicly traded private prison and detention company that contracts with federal, state, and local governments to operate correctional and immigration detention facilities. It is one of the largest private detention operators in the United States, with facilities housing tens of thousands of people. In 2025-26, GEO Group's immigration detention contracts expanded significantly as ICE enforcement operations intensified and detention populations grew.
Also known as The GEO Group · GEO Group, Inc.
2026 Events (13)
ICE and GEO Group denied an elderly priest in Aurora detention adequate testing for suspected tuberculosis and cancer symptoms
Colorado Newsline reported August 14, 2026 that Edward Nalwamba, a 78-year-old retired Anglican priest from Uganda held at the GEO Group-run Aurora ICE Processing Center since September 2025, has become severely malnourished, wheelchair-bound after a fall, and continues to present chest pain and a chronic cough consistent with tuberculosis, along with an elevated prostate-specific antigen level suggesting possible cancer. His attorney says the facility has provided only cough medicine and no sputum culture, specialist workup, or other follow-up testing despite a positive TB skin test taken when he entered custody. Colorado public-health officials separately confirmed at least one active tuberculosis case at the same facility and issued orders requiring GEO's cooperation with their investigation.
ICE and GEO Group left worm-contaminated drinking water uncorrected at Adelanto detention facility despite court-ordered fix
On July 28, 2026, a detainee at the GEO Group-run Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California shared video of worm-like organisms in the facility's drinking water, corroborated by a second detainee and immigrant-rights attorneys. The discovery came despite a federal court's July 16 preliminary injunction ordering ICE to fix water, food, and sanitation conditions at the facility; plaintiffs' counsel said ICE had met the order's monitoring requirements but not its water and sanitation mandates. DHS denied any water-quality problem and said the facility uses the same municipal supply as surrounding Adelanto.
ICE narrowed its own death-reporting rules, then released a dying Delaney Hall detainee to keep his death out of the count
In the week of July 20, 2026, a recently arrived detainee at the GEO Group-run Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey suffered a seizure during intake and was granted a "discretionary release" to University Hospital, where he died soon after. Because he was no longer in ICE custody at the time of death, ICE did not publicly report it, citing a June 2026 policy change that limits its death-reporting obligations to people who die while still detained; Rep. Rob Menendez disclosed the death on August 3-4, 2026 after learning of it during an unannounced oversight visit. The Department of Homeland Security defended the practice on the record, saying "ICE is not responsible when an individual passes away weeks after leaving their custody."
GEO Group blocked a legally required tuberculosis investigation at the Aurora ICE detention facility
On July 15, 2026, Adams County, Colorado health officials reported that the GEO Group, the private operator of the Aurora ICE Processing Center, had failed to provide the legally required access needed to complete a public-health investigation into an active tuberculosis case at the facility. Investigators said they were denied access to the infected patient, medical records, and detainee-movement information despite a June 25 public health order requiring compliance. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied that the facility had any confirmed active cases or had violated any laws.
ICE transferred Delaney Hall detainee to Mississippi two days after his alleged rape in custody, without explanation
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transferred Hieison Ultengo, a 37-year-old detainee at the Delaney Hall immigration facility in Newark, New Jersey, to the Adams County Correctional Center in Mississippi on June 27, 2026 — two days after he was allegedly raped by another detainee and briefly hospitalized. ICE gave no explanation for the transfer to Ultengo, his attorney, or his family, who learned of the move from other detainees. His attorney, Catherine Reilly, said the transfer has hampered his ability to fight a pending deportation order and disrupted his access to HIV medication.
Washington Post report reveals ICE revised detention standards at Geo Group's private request, exempting detainees from minimum-wage protections
On June 16, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued new national detention standards that, according to Washington Post reporting, incorporated language privately requested by Geo Group, the country's largest private immigration detention contractor. Geo Group had asked ICE to remove contractor obligations to comply with state and local detainee-treatment laws and to add language supporting its legal position that paying detainees $1 per day does not violate minimum-wage laws because detainees are not employees. The newly published standards include both categories of change: they explicitly state that detainees are not employees and are not entitled to wages or benefits under applicable wage or labor laws.
ICE transfers most Delaney Hall hunger strikers out of Newark jail in apparent retaliation
As a hunger and labor strike at Newark's Delaney Hall ICE jail entered its third week, immigrant-rights advocates said most of the hunger strikers had been transferred out of the GEO Group-run facility to other ICE jails in apparent retaliation for the protest. The strike, which began May 22 and was initially led by an estimated 300 detainees, centers on demands that include firing a female guard accused of sexually assaulting at least 10 detained women. Human Rights Watch and the ACLU have separately documented retaliatory transfers, the use of force, and abysmal conditions at the facility.
GEO Group cancels Delaney Hall family visits, bars Sen. Kim from speaking with detainees
On Saturday, June 6, 2026, GEO Group — the private contractor operating ICE's Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark — canceled the day's family visitation, turning away spouses and children at the gate, according to Mother Jones. U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), conducting a congressional oversight visit, was admitted but told that if he spoke with any detainee the tour would be terminated immediately. Kim reported seeing a woman curled up in visible medical distress in a women's housing unit, more than two weeks into detainees' hunger and labor strike over conditions, and said guards would not answer his questions about her.
ICE and GEO Group use pepper spray and force against hunger-striking Delaney Hall detainees
Beginning around May 22, 2026, hundreds of immigrants held at the GEO Group-run Delaney Hall ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey, launched a hunger and labor strike over conditions including spoiled food, scalding showers, and denial of medical care. As the strike continued, staff retaliated by transferring strike leaders, suspending family visitation, and, on May 28, using pepper spray, batons, and rubber projectiles against detainees in an enclosed dining hall, injuring several. White House border czar Tom Homan publicly raised the prospect of court-ordered force-feeding, while the Department of Homeland Security denied that any hunger strike was occurring.
Detainees launch hunger strike over conditions at GEO Group-run Adelanto ICE complex
On May 19, 2026, at least 20 immigrants detained at the Desert View Annex — one of three facilities in the GEO Group-operated Adelanto ICE complex in Southern California — launched a hunger strike to protest custodial conditions, citing medical neglect, shrinking food portions, unsafe water, overcrowding, and retaliation against detainees who speak out. Their demands include due process and bond reform, adequate medical and mental-health care, nutritious food, accountability for deaths in custody, and the right to organize. The Department of Homeland Security denied that any hunger strike is taking place.
GEO Group barred Washington state health inspectors from its Tacoma ICE detention center despite an upheld state oversight law
On April 20, 2026, The GEO Group refused to admit Washington State Department of Health inspectors to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, the latest of repeated denials since the state's oversight law took effect. That 2023 law, upheld by the Ninth Circuit in 2025, authorizes the inspections, which the state pursued after more than 3,500 complaints about conditions including contaminated food, poor sanitation, and inadequate medical care. Washington's governor and attorney general sued in federal court to compel access.
José Guadalupe Ramos-Solano dies in ICE custody at GEO Group-run Adelanto facility
José Guadalupe Ramos-Solano, a 45-year-old Mexican national, was found unconscious in his bunk and pronounced dead on March 25, 2026, while detained at the GEO Group-operated Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California. Other detainees said he had complained of overheating and difficulty breathing hours earlier and that staff did not respond until he was unresponsive. His death was the 14th known death in ICE custody in 2026 and at least the fourth at the Adelanto complex since 2025, prompting Mexico's Los Angeles consulate and two members of Congress to demand an investigation.
ICE detained Alberto Gutierrez Reyes, who died at Adelanto facility after repeated denied requests for medical care
Alberto Gutierrez Reyes, 48, died February 27, 2026 at a Victorville hospital after transfer from GEO Group's Adelanto ICE Processing Center, where he had repeatedly sought medical care for worsening symptoms. His wife said he was denied treatment; ICE said he had been evaluated before transport. Mexico later named his death among 17 in a July 2026 criminal complaint against U.S. officials, and a federal judge ordered ICE to fix Adelanto's medical care — an order the government is now appealing.
2025 Events (4)
ICE awarded GEO Group and 12 other firms up to $1.2 billion to locate immigrants, supplying contractors 50,000 names a month
On December 16, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded indefinite-delivery "skip tracing" contracts worth up to $1.2 billion over two years to 13 private companies, among them B.I. Incorporated, the wholly owned subsidiary of private-prison operator GEO Group, whose award is valued at up to $121 million. Under the contracts ICE furnishes each contractor with roughly 50,000 people's last known addresses and identifying information every month, and the contractors mine commercial databases and physically observe those people, returning time-stamped photographs of homes and workplaces. Reporting by The Intercept, Source Material and Bloomberg News established that the program reaches people on ICE's non-detained docket nationwide and that the agency told contractors a report may be followed by "an enforcement action."
Family demands independent autopsy after Jean Wilson Brutus, 41, dies within a day of entering Delaney Hall
Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian national, died on December 12, 2025, at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey — roughly one day after entering ICE custody at the GEO Group-operated Delaney Hall Detention Facility. ICE reported he showed no signs of distress at intake and listed the cause of death as "unknown." His family and advocates sought an independent autopsy and called for the facility's closure; Brutus was believed to be the first detainee to die at Delaney Hall since it opened in May 2025.
ICE and GEO Group denied diabetic detainee Elton Purvis insulin and care, causing repeated hospitalizations at Pearsall facility
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and GEO Group, which operates the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas, confiscated detainee Elton Purvis's insulin and malaria medication and denied him food meeting his diabetic and religious dietary needs during his May-to-December 2025 detention. Purvis, a 55-year-old legal permanent resident and Type 1 diabetic, was found unresponsive and hospitalized for dangerously abnormal blood sugar at least three times — the first on June 2, 2025 — after guards repeatedly ignored his pleas for help and his more than 100 grievances to ICE went unanswered.
ICE officers beat disabled Sunnyvale man Ulises Peña López unconscious during 2025 arrest, lawsuit alleges
On February 21, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Ulises Peña López, a disabled carpenter, outside his home in Sunnyvale, California, and, according to a federal lawsuit filed in July 2026, beat him in front of his wife and young daughter before taking him to a nearby alley and continuing until he lost consciousness and had to be hospitalized. The suit says GEO Group and CoreCivic, the private contractors that ran the detention facilities where he was held for more than six months, failed to accommodate his disability, and that he suffered a stroke and a heart attack in custody that left him partially paralyzed. He was deported to Mexico in October 2025.