Biden Signs Executive Order 14006 to End Federal Private Prison Contracts, But Excludes Immigration Detention

President Joe Biden signs Executive Order 14006, titled “Reforming Our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities,” directing the Attorney General to not renew Department of Justice contracts with privately operated prisons. The order mostly replicates Obama’s 2016 policy but extends slightly to include U.S. Marshals Service contracts. Biden cites the Justice Department inspector general’s finding that privately operated prisons fail to maintain safety and security levels comparable to government facilities.

However, the executive order contains a critical limitation: it does not affect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts because ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of Justice. This exclusion is devastating because immigration detention represents the larger and more profitable market for private prison companies—43.9% of GEO Group’s total revenue ($1.05 billion) and 30% of CoreCivic’s revenue ($552.2 million) in 2022 comes from ICE contracts.

The order affects only about 14,000 people in 11 federal Bureau of Prisons facilities—just 9% of federal prisoners and roughly 10% of all U.S. prisoners. By exempting immigration detention, Biden allows the core profit center of the private prison industry to continue operating and expanding. The limited scope reveals how even Democratic efforts to restrict private prisons leave the most profitable and rapidly growing segment untouched. Trump rescinds this order on January 20, 2025 as part of his “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” demonstrating the fragility of executive-only reform.