Thursday, August 6, 2026

Trump’s solution to abuse in ICE facilities is pricey—and evil

 

Trump’s solution to abuse in ICE facilities is pricey—and evil

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/8/5/800079827/news/trumps-solution-to-abuse-in-ice-facilities-is-pricey-and-evil/ 

Trump’s solution to abuse in ICE facilities is pricey—and evil

by Alix Breeden
Staff
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FILE - A sign for the Otay Mesa Detention Center sits in front of the building, in San Diego, July 7, 2020. AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
A sign for the Otay Mesa Detention Center sits in front of the building in San Diego on July 7, 2020.AP

The fight for accountability and oversight within privately owned ICE detention facilities is out in the open. Deaths, hunger strikes, and the horrifying conditions being experienced by the people detained within those walls are consistent topics of conversation in the public discourse. 

But instead of working to alleviate the problems and improve conditions, the Trump administration is choosing to retreat behind a veil of secrecy. 

Under Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s leadership, the Department of Homeland Security is now reportedly purchasing ICE detention facilities from private prison giant CoreCivic, which might lead to even less oversight within the camps.

A cartoon by Drew Sheneman depicting an ICE agent holding a gun and wearing a mask outside of an ICE facility.
Drew Sheneman/Tribune Content Agency

According to Time, the Trump administration is paying CoreCivic $739.2 million for the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego and $732.6 million for the California City Detention Facility in Kern County.

The private prison company made a $500,000 donation to President Donald Trump’s inaugural fund. These lucrative government purchases totaling more than $1.4 billion, along with continued billion-dollar contracts to run numerous other facilities, prove that CoreCivic’s calculated donation more than paid off.

The facilities being purchased by the government hold upward of 1,200 people on a daily basis 

But while the federal government will be the owner of record, CoreCivic will still be managing the detention centers. 

In other words, the only thing that’s changing is the state’s access for oversight, rather than the actual conditions within these facilities.

In California specifically, lawmakers have pushed for legal strides to enforce health inspections and oversight within the facilities.

A law was passed in 2024 that enforced these inspections, in hopes it would lead to better treatment of the thousands of immigrants moving through the state’s facilities. Private prison company GEO Group challenged the law without success. 

And GEO Group’s CEO saw the writing on the wall in the Golden State, even speculating that federal ownership would ease this pesky state oversight issue.

Related | Inside the fight to protect immigrants as deaths surge in ICE prisons

“As some blue states are considering more active involvement in oversight of facilities, I think the logical solution to much of that is federal ownership of the facilities,” George Zoley, CEO of GEO Group, said in a recording of the company’s earnings call in May obtained by Time.

This latest move by the Trump administration seems to be Plan B (or maybe C or D?) in its efforts to both shape the narrative and control what is—or isn’t—happening inside these facilities.

But the narrative has already taken hold, whether they like it or not. A record number of deaths within the facilities have captured national attention while images of apparent worm-filled drinking water and horrifying children’s drawings have circulated as well. 

“They admit they don’t have clean water, they admit they don’t have nutritious meals,” Mark Rosenbaum, senior special counsel for strategic litigation with Public Counsel, previously told Daily Kos. Public Counsel has been a part of an ongoing lawsuit against California’s Adelanto ICE facility and its alleged human rights abuses. 

This April 20, 2019, file photo shows the U.S. Immigration and Enforcement Processing Center operated by GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) a Florida-based company specializing in privatized corrections in Adelanto, Calif. A federal appeals court has tossed out California’s ban on privately owned immigration detention facilities, keeping intact a key piece of the world’s largest detention system for immigrants. A divided three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, that it found the ban interferes with the federal government’s authority to enforce the law.
This April 20, 2019, file photo shows the U.S. Immigration and Enforcement Processing Center operated by GEO Group, Inc., a Florida-based company specializing in privatized corrections in Adelanto, Calif. AP

In July, a judge ruled in a preliminary injunction that the U.S. government needed to remedy any unconstitutional conditions. He also said that it’s likely that the federal government was violating the rights of people detained within those walls.

Human rights abuses of immigrants at the hands of the government are not new, and Democratic administrations have also participated in inhumane practices. But the sheer scale of the current government’s abuses and the public condemnation of its actions set this siege apart.  

As for the overall treatment of immigrants within the U.S., the Trump administration has already bolstered its campaign of mistreatment by trying to dehumanize and criminalize them. 

Official government social media accounts have created memes mocking shackled men and women, and even stooped to painting immigrants as “X-Files”-themed “aliens” who “walk among us.”

In short, they’ve stripped the humanity of the people they seek to arrest, detain, and remove to other countries—in some cases, countries they’ve never stepped foot in before.

Taking federal control of the facilities in blue states seeking to remedy this seems to be just another step in the Trump administration’s ongoing push to punish immigrants.

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All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. The views expressed in comments are those of the individual authors and don't necessarily reflect the views of Daily Kos.

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  1. Comment by owlsas.

    These are concentration camps. Immigrants are the new Jews. MAGAs are Nazis. How do we protect the abused and take our counry back?

  2. Comment by resisttyranny.

    As long as weak, cowardly political "leaders" throw their spines, balls and morality on the altar in front of the First Mushroom, the Fourth Reich is going to confine becoming more and more depraved. Once states find their conscience to stand up and say, NO, we can begin coll m reclaiming basic human decency.

  3. Comment by GWM.

    Privatization equals suffering.

    At least 512 characters not 128

  4. Comment by Bolton Peck.

    We need to stop 'both sides'-ing this. NO Democratic administration has EVER done what tRump nee Miller are doing today. Two wrongs don't make a right.

    This needs to be another albatross around Rethuglicans' necks-for the next several decades.

    I only wish the DNC really understood power. They know all about collecting money from billionaire donors while presenting themselves as the softer alternative-but they don't really grasp POWER. Which was why Pelosi et al, just let Bush go after his war crimes, as but one example.

    • Reply by Cassandra Silvestra.

      Certainly, no Democratic administration sent paramilitary gangs of violent thugs into cities miles from the border to hunt down immigrants like animals.

  5. Comment by AdamSelene.

    Just lovely ... The Germans , then, "just didn't KNOW" ... but the Americans, now, "just don't CARE."

    " ....Top Voter Concerns Polling from organizations like Pew Research Center and CNBC shows that economic pressures overshadow other topics. The primary economic and political focal points include:..."

  6. Comment by washwalker.

    The MAGA/evangelicals are the most ungodly sect in the country, worshiping the Golden Calf the old testament warns about.

    • Reply by Cassandra Silvestra.

      Someone on Facebook today posted that "the u.S is noT evEryone's Keeper!" I responded that Cain couldn't have said it better, but Jesus gave rather different advice.

    • Reply by resisttyranny.

      And besides, this has nothing to do with being anyone's "keeper." This is happening in our country. Not in North Korea or Russia. And we seem to be other people's "keeper" in Iran, Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, Greenland...

  7. Comment by tht73.

    What will be remembered, probably, more here isn't just Trump's corruption, but those who allowed it. Trump's corruption isn't covert, it isn't hidden. It's right out in the open, smacking us in our faces, letting us all know that we, the people, can't do a damn thing about it. I read an article by Miles Taylor today stating that even after Democratic midterm wins in November, things will be even worse. That is really a terrible, terrible thought, but really wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. Trump has a knack for making things much, much worse than they already are.

  8. Comment by LindaD2025.

    There is something seriously wrong with Donald Trump!! To have those poor illegals suffering in horrible conditions, and not even given proper nutrition to eat!!

    • Reply by Cassandra Silvestra.

      He spent most of his adult life abusing and exploiting young girls with his pal Epstein. Why would you expect anything but sadism from him now?

    • Reply by owlsas.

      Right. He is a classic sadist.

  9. Comment by voidstuff.

    Private prisons are an abomination and should be completely abolished. Democrats should make this an issue.

  10. Comment by don cook.

    So, we're just going to stand back, and let the nazis set up more concentration camps????? Bull...any representative/senator that wants to pass this will be in the dock at Nuremberg II. Revolt and overthrow!

  11. Comment by jakebob.

    Come the revolution, WE THE PEOPLE will need these facilities to um, house, some thousands of defendants awaiting trial in the biggest conspiracy-against-rights case(s) yet to be seen in our 250-year history. Let me dream.

    • Reply by don cook.

      No dreaming... reality.

    • Reply by violalib.

      I hope your dream includes humane administration. Otherwise we are as evil as they are.

  12. Comment by jatfffh.

    We need to make private for-profit detainment for any reason in any state completely illegal.

  13. Comment by QuasiTrue.

    Welcome to the MAGA Auschwitz!! See the illegally held Hispanics served rancid food, and the 24 hour floodlights! Don't forget that all of the immigrants are packed into tuna-can size cells, and their water rations come out of sewer pipes. We all must all celebrate that our clepto Dotard-in Chief, has already won the war in Iran 12 times!

  14. Comment by isitso.

    “ Taking federal control of the facilities in blue states seeking to remedy this seems to be just another step in the Trump administration’s ongoing push to punish immigrants”

    …and to eliminate the agency of blue states, and quash the resistance to its racist policies.

  15. Comment by Out There.

    What the hell is wrong with America that this is even remotely acceptable. The Moral Decay of America GQP is incredible It happened so fast all it took was a two-bit con man to become president. For the GQP and many Christians to overlook every crime he commits and the fact that he's has been accused of being a pedophile by credible witnesses. What's it take to turn this around? I don't know but I do know I won't live long enough to see it happen.

  16. Comment by CanadianKitty.

    They are NOT detention facilities. They are CONCENTRATION CAMPS. Yes, I'm yelling. How does anyone not get this yet?

    • Reply by tylerjay.

      And some features of maga camps include aromatic showers and warm fireplaces.

    • Reply by isitso.

      I listen a lot to Heather Cox Richardson. She gets it.

  17. Comment by Feithlin.

    A federal Judge ruled yesterday that NY couldn’t require ICE agents to be unmasked in this State.

    • Reply by LaFeminista.

      Well the secret police need to be secret./s

  18. Comment by badgerite.

    I’m afraid the “worst of the worst” right now are in the White House or related to someone who is,

  19. Comment by LaFeminista.

    What I would like to know is there any follow up of those deported?

    I am sickened by all of this.

    • Reply by Alix Breeden.

      authorStaff

      The stories of course vary person to person, but I've personally spoken with and followed the stories of many. The DHS does not follow any of them and refuses any responsibility for their livelihood after leaving US custody. One example is of a planeful of Venezuelans who were deported back to their home country and, just hours after landing, were buried in the rubble from the twin earthquakes. Many died. The DHS told me in response to a story that i wrote that they were not responsible for what happened to them once they left that plane.

    • Reply by LaFeminista.

      Many were refugees, this should be fully documented, no excuses.

  20. Comment by just ju.

    The prison profiteers are obviously setting up concentration camps.

    They will be no different than deadly horrific Hitler's CONCENTRATION camps.

    No different.

    Nazism has arrived in the USA. These private prison concentration camps, which they are attempting to pass off as harmless "detention centers," are concentration camps.

    Be warned. And crematoriams will surely follow.

    • Reply by Feithlin.

      Look at how quickly the money changes hands in these deals! Everyone involved is making money hand over fist and no one is able to stop it. Just another creative grift off our treasury!

    • Reply by CanadianKitty.

      I hadn't read this before I made my comment above. I agree 100%. It is pretty damned obvious now.

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Why $370bn tech group Palantir pays 1.4 percent tax rate: Report

Why $370bn tech group Palantir pays 1.4 percent tax rate: Report

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/6/why-370bn-tech-group-palantir-pays-just-1-4-percent-tax-report 

Why $370bn tech group Palantir pays 1.4 percent tax rate: Report

The AI group’s technology is used by Israeli military and Trump administration’s ICE.

Peter Thiel, who owns a significant stake in Palantir Technologies.
Peter Thiel, who owns a significant stake in Palantir Technologies [File: Ben Margot/AP]
By Caolán Magee
Published On 6 Aug 2026

Palantir Technologies, the United States data analytics and artificial intelligence company which has contracts with the country’s military and intelligence apparatus, has “engineered its corporate structure” to pay no US federal corporate income tax, according to a new report.

The study by the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) comes as Palantir reports soaring revenues, driven partly by government contracts, while it faces continued criticism for providing technology to the Israeli military amid the genocide in Gaza.

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Here’s what we know.

What does the report show?

Earlier this week, Palantir reported second-quarter revenue of $1.94bn, up 93 percent from a year earlier. But despite its rapid growth, CICTAR said its global effective tax rate was just 1.4 percent in 2025.

CICTAR’s report also identifies what it describes as a pattern of profits arising from contracts in the United Kingdom and Europe being shifted to the company’s US parent company, leaving relatively little taxable profit in the locations where the work is carried out.

In the UK, Palantir recorded a corporate tax charge of about two million pounds ($2.7m) in 2024, despite securing more than 670 million pounds ($900m) in government contracts in recent years.

CICTAR claims its investigation shows that Palantir shifts profits to the US, where earlier losses and tax breaks help it pay little or no federal corporate income tax.

Palantir has also benefitted from tax changes introduced under US President Donald Trump, including the reduction of the federal corporate rate from 35 percent to 21 percent in 2017.

The report does not allege that any of the arrangements identified are illegal. But they have raised ethical questions about whether a company receiving billions of dollars in public contracts worldwide should be able to contribute so little in tax.

A spokesperson for Palantir told the UK’s Guardian newspaper that it fully complies with all tax regimes. “Transfer pricing, which allocates a company’s profits among entities within the Palantir group of companies, is an entirely standard practice that is virtually universal for large multinational companies,” the spokesperson said.

Privacy Policy

Al Jazeera has contacted Palantir for comment about this story, but has not received a response.

What is Palantir?

The company was founded in 2003 by a group that included chief executive Alex Karp and billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel. Palantir initially received backing from In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit venture capital fund created in 1999 by the CIA to support high-tech startups developing technology for US intelligence and national security.

Palantir’s market value was around $370bn during early trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Thursday, making it one of the world’s biggest 50 publicly listed companies.

Palantir has faced growing controversy over its work with the Trump administration’s immigration authorities, including providing technology used by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. More than 60 people have died in ICE custody or been shot and killed during federal immigration enforcement operations since Donald Trump returned to office

According to the CICTAR report, Palantir technology enables agencies like ICE and the Department of Homeland Security “to merge vast datasets, including financial, immigration, and health records, without adequate transparency or consent, raising alarms over privacy violations, algorithmic bias, and the rise of the surveillance state”.

How is Palantir linked to Israel?

Palantir has said it has a “strategic partnership” with Israel. The company opened offices in Israel in 2015.

The CICTAR report states: “There was a ‘surge’ of investment into Israel in response to increased demand for Palantir software following the October 7 attacks, and a major strategic partnership was signed between Palantir and the Israeli Ministry of Defence in [January] 2024 for data analytics and AI.”

Open Intel, a research platform tracking corporate involvement in Israel’s war on Gaza, has found that Palantir has recruited former members of Unit 8200, the Israeli military’s elite cyberintelligence division.

Open Intel has also reported that Palantir’s software can combine intercepted communications, satellite imagery and other intelligence to help Israeli forces produce military targeting lists.

CEO Karp has defended the company’s support for Israel. “I am the most publicly supportive CEO of Israel,” he told CNBC earlier this year, adding: “I think Israel is on the side of good.”

Palantir has also faced scrutiny over its vision for the future of artificial intelligence.

In The Technological Republic, a book co-written by Karp and Palantir executive Nicholas W Zamiska, the pair argue that Silicon Valley has abandoned its responsibility to develop technology that strengthens Western military power alongside advanced AI capabilities.

Some critics have described the ideology as a form of “techno-fascism”.

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How much tax does Palantir pay in the US?

Palantir paid no US federal corporate income tax in 2025 and just $2.5m in state income taxes, according to the CICTAR report. It was the third consecutive year in which the company paid no federal corporate income tax in the US.

CICTAR says Palantir has built up more than $3.5bn in deferred tax assets through previous losses, research and development credits and deductions linked to shares awarded to employees. In simple terms, these tax benefits can be used to cancel out tax due on future profits.

The report estimates these could shelter Palantir’s next $16.5bn in profits, allowing it to avoid federal corporate income tax for many years.

Palantir has also benefitted from the 2017 corporate rate changes introduced under Trump.

“The current 21% US federal corporate income tax rate (reduced from 35% in 2017 during the first Trump administration) should have seen Palantir incurring a $348 million US federal income tax expense in 2025. However, it paid zero in US federal income tax and only $2.5 million in US state income taxes,” the report states.

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How much tax does Palantir pay elsewhere?

Palantir paid less than $21.7m in income taxes globally in 2025, net of refunds, despite recording pretax profits of $1.66bn.

Its global tax expense was only $22.7m, meaning that both the tax it recorded in its accounts and the cash tax it actually paid amounted to little more than 1 percent of its pretax profit.

Outside the US, its largest disclosed cash tax payments were $5.8m in South Korea and $4.8m in Japan. It paid $2.8m in France, $1.7m in Germany and a combined $4.1m across all its other foreign markets.

The UK, Palantir’s largest market outside the US, was not listed among the countries where it made its largest tax payments, despite generating $427m in revenue there in 2025.

In its UK accounts for 2024, Palantir recorded a corporation tax charge of about 2 million pounds ($2.7m).

How does Palantir reduce its tax bill in Europe?

CICTAR says its investigations show that Palantir reduces its European taxes by leaving relatively little taxable profit in the countries where its staff operate and its contracts are delivered.

In 2025, 26 percent of Palantir’s revenue was generated outside the US, but only 4 percent of its pretax profit was recorded overseas. By contrast, 96 percent of its profits were booked in the US, where its accumulated tax benefits meant it paid no federal corporate income tax.

In several European countries, local Palantir subsidiaries operate largely as service providers to the US parent. This leaves them with narrow reported profit margins and correspondingly small tax bills.

Why do Palantir’s government contracts matter?

The CICTAR report states that Palantir’s tax arrangements are particularly significant because much of its rapid growth has been driven by public contracts.

In the US, the company holds multibillion-dollar contracts with government agencies, including the military, intelligence services and immigration authorities. More than half of Palantir’s revenue now comes from government customers, according to the report.

In the UK, Palantir holds at least 670 million pounds ($901m) in government contracts, including a 330 million-pound ($444m) agreement to build the National Health Service (NHS) Federated Data Platform and a 240 million-pound ($323m) Ministry of Defence contract awarded without a competitive tender.

The NHS contract has attracted criticism from health workers and digital rights groups, who have questioned the decision to entrust sensitive patient data to a company that has faced scrutiny over allegations that its technology has been used to aid Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Although tax avoidance strategies can be legal and the report does not allege that Palantir has broken the law, CICTAR says Palantir “appears to do everything it can to avoid corporate income tax payments – the backbone of national economic security – which pay for the services it seeks to deliver, and many other essential public services”.

Duncan McCann, tech and data lead at the Good Law Project in the UK, told Al Jazeera the findings were “a slap in the face to ordinary taxpayers and local businesses who play by the rules”.

“It is completely unacceptable that multinational tech giants like Palantir are happy to extract huge profits from the UK market while allegedly exploiting accounting loopholes to dodge their corporate responsibilities,” he said.

Meanwhile, the UK Treasury’s own procurement guidance states that public bodies should not “engage in, or connive at, tax evasion, tax avoidance or tax planning” and should be vigilant not to facilitate tax arrangements that are “detrimental or disadvantageous to the Exchequer”.

Amnesty International has called on the UK government to reconsider Palantir’s government contracts. Both the UK government and NHS England should “cease the purchase of equipment and services from the company” until it can demonstrate it is “not contributing to Israel’s genocide, apartheid, unlawful occupation or other crimes under international law”, Amnesty said.

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