If you voted for Trump because you think that your tax dollars are going to undocumented immigrants living off welfare and getting free healthcare - let me explain to you what’s really happening. And this isn’t some conspiracy theory - you too can find this information with just 5 minutes of searching for it.
The Trump administration isn’t running a deportation operation - they’re running a detention business. And business is very, very good.
Florida says Alligator Alcatraz will cost $450 million a year to run - paid out of the state’s emergency fund, with the state counting on FEMA disaster money to pay it back. Yes, you read that right - emergency money meant for hurricanes is now bankrolling private prison profits. Florida under DeSantis has become the ultimate middleman, billing the feds for this circus while treating it like a growth industry.
The math is simple: beds full equals money flowing. Beds empty equals no payday. Guess what the priority becomes?
Now let’s talk about the grifters getting rich off this mess.
Tom Homan collected at least $5,000 in consulting fees from GEO Group’s division before stepping into his border czar role. GEO Group is one of the two companies that run the vast majority of America’s immigration detention facilities. Back in government as border czar, Homan has pushed to more than double ICE’s detention capacity - from 41,500 beds to at least 100,000. Shockingly, GEO landed contracts this year to reopen detention centers in New Jersey and Michigan that it says will bring in $130 million a year.
Richard Painter, Bush’s former ethics lawyer, called it exactly what it was: “Was he being consulted to line up these contracts with the Trump administration right before he entered the Trump administration?” But did anyone stop this revolving door? Nope!
DeSantis isn’t directly cashing GEO Group checks (that we know of), but he’s built a setup that sends state emergency money - and maybe FEMA money down the road - to private contractors on no-bid deals. Under his leadership, Florida’s emergency fund has become a pipeline for no-bid detention contracts.
Here’s the dirty secret nobody wants to admit: over 70% of people locked up in these facilities have no criminal convictions. They’re not dangerous criminals - they’re inventory. It doesn’t matter if someone overstayed a visa or missed a court date. If they can fill a bed, they can generate revenue.
And it’s a proven system - just look at the U.S. private prison system. You stole $1000 worth of goods from a store? Let’s pay 30k a year to lock you up for 5 years. Who can argue with that math?
Trump, Homan, DeSantis - they’re not governing. They’re operating a cash machine where human beings are the raw material. The cruelty isn’t incidental - it’s the marketing strategy for a very profitable scam.
This is not about removing “criminals.” It’s not about protecting anyone. It’s about manufacturing a crisis, inflaming people’s fears, and then getting paid to pretend to solve it. The system incentivizes locking up as many people as possible, not enforcing immigration law efficiently or humanely.
So no, they don’t care about the border. They care about contracts. They care about bonuses. They care about feeding money into private companies who will pay them back later in speaking fees, consulting gigs, or cushy advisory board positions.
Correction, October 7th, 2026: This post first said FEMA disaster funds were paying for Alligator Alcatraz - Florida paid from its own emergency fund and asked FEMA to pay it back - and called Florida a money laundering operation turning FEMA funds into detention contracts; no one has been charged with that, and no FEMA money had come in, so the line was cut back. It also said Homan pushed to nearly double ICE’s detention beds as acting ICE director in Trump’s first term (that push came in his second-term job as border czar), that GEO Group runs most immigration detention (it’s one of two companies that run the vast majority), and that GEO ended up with $130 million a year in new federal contracts (that’s GEO’s own estimate for two contracts it won this year).