The GEO Group has scored billions of dollars in government contracts in the second Trump administration as the largest owner and operator of immigration detention centers. The company has also become one of the biggest corporate contributors to GOP-aligned political campaign committees in the run-up to the 2026 midterm election.
GEO Reentry Services LLC, a subsidiary of the GEO Group with the same corporate address, donated another $1 million to MAGA Inc., the main super PAC supporting President Trump. A new filing at the Federal Election Commission shows the donation was made Sept. 1.
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A Scripps News review of FEC records shows the GEO Group subsidiary has now contributed $5.4 million to MAGA Inc., part of $7.2 million given to conservative and Republican campaign committees ahead of the election.
That total includes another $150,000 donated to the Senate Leadership Fund, the campaign committee supporting Republican candidates for U.S. Senate.
GEO’s political spending is unusually large for a publicly traded company, said Andrew Mayersohn, campaign spending researcher at the nonpartisan OpenSecrets group.
“The very biggest donors of this cycle are typically either really wealthy individuals or companies controlled by really wealthy individuals,” he said, pointing to Elon Musk and SpaceX as examples.
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The GEO Group subsidiary has poured money into MAGA Inc. as the Trump administration continues to award major taxpayer-funded contracts to the company, including a new $1.5 billion deal to keep operating an ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington, for the next 10 years.
FEC records show the money from GEO Group is helping to pay for attack ads on television against Democrats running for Senate linked to a group called No Going Back PAC.
"There is a little bit of a chain to follow where a GEO Group subsidiary donates to MAGA Inc., MAGA Inc. sends this money to No Going Back PAC, No Going Back PAC runs these attack ads against Democratic Senate candidates,” Mayersohn said. “But ultimately, yes, some of that money does trace to GEO Group.”
GEO Group also has an employee-funded political action committee that has donated directly to Republican committees and candidates, but at a much smaller scale because of campaign finance limits.
The GEO Group did not respond to questions about its political spending. In a 2024 political activity and lobbying report, GEO said it maintains the “highest level of ethics and compliance” when making campaign contributions.
There is no evidence directly linking GEO Group’s donations to the awarding of contracts.
Federal law prohibits government contractors from making political donations, but GEO Group’s use of a subsidiary that does not have government work takes advantage of what campaign finance reform advocates say is a loophole in the law allowing for unlimited corporate contributions.
