The No Tax Breaks For ICE Contractors Act Passes First Policy Committee

• Nicholas Chan
• Communications Director, Office of Assemblymember Alex Lee
• (916) 319-2392
• [email protected]

Masked ICE agents are terrorizing immigrants and American citizens. With a massive windfall from the Republican federal budget bill, ICE is indiscriminately kidnapping people without judicial warrants, tearing families apart, and locking up people in overcrowded, decrepit detention centers run by private prison operators. These corporate profiteers are part of a vast network of private contractors enabling ICE's blatant violations of people's Constitutional rights.

Assemblymember Alex Lee's AB 1675, the No Tax Breaks For ICE Contractors Act, ensures that California does not spend taxpayer dollars to bankroll corporations that aid and abet ICE's indiscriminate violence. The bill cancels tax breaks for any companies that contract with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its immigration enforcement agencies. It is now headed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee after passing the Revenue and Taxation Committee on April 27.

AB 1675 comes at a time when private prison corporations are rapidly expanding detention camps. Geo Group just opened California's 8th immigrant detention center in McFarland. Another for-profit, private prison company, known as CoreCivic, began operating the state's largest detention center in California City last year. Inside ICE's privately-run detention facilities, detainees have sounded the alarm of human rights abuses and inhumane conditions.

"ICE and its corporate profiteers are locking up tens of thousands of people without any regard for human dignity. They're warehousing children and pregnant women in detention camps, while masked agents are violently kidnapping innocent people without warrants and executing American citizens. By doing business with armed thugs acting with impunity, ICE's corporate collaborators are profiting off of human death and suffering," said Assemblymember Lee. "ICE must be abolished and its rogue elements prosecuted. The No Tax Breaks For ICE Contractors Act ensures that public dollars are not enriching corporations that enable ICE's lawless violence. Corporate America must make a choice: collaborate with ICE and lose their tax breaks, or stand on the right side of history with the American public."

Most Americans believe ICE has gone too far, and nearly half believe that ICE should be abolished. Since ICE's killing of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, the public has overwhelmingly opposed the agency's violent and deadly actions.

Meanwhile, the federal government's terror campaign has been a boon for businesses like private prison operators. As the CEO of CoreCivic told investors, "Our business is perfectly aligned with the demands of this moment." By the fourth quarter of 2025, the firm reported the total revenue from ICE to be $244.7 million, up from $120.3 million from the same time in 2024.

As corporate executives boast skyrocketing revenues, detainees have described CoreCivic's California City facility as "hell on earth" without adequate food, medical care, and hygiene supplies. The detention center in Adelanto, San Bernardino County, run by Geo Group, is one of the deadliest facilities in the nation. Amid widespread medical neglect, deaths in ICE custody are projected to surpass fatality rates during COVID-19.

Beyond the private prison industry, corporations that are cashing in on ICE's violence are wide-ranging. They include transportation providers, unmanned aircraft suppliers, armed security services, and software companies. Data firm Palantir, for instance, has a $30 million contract to develop software tracking immigrants; California-based Safe Restraints Inc. manufactures full-body restraint suits used in deportations. Further, private prison company GEO Group expects its transportation subsidiary to make up to an additional $50 million in annual revenue for deportation flights alone.

AB 1675 deems companies that contract with DHS, ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and the Management Directorate to be ineligible for a number of state tax credits. These credits include the Research credit, California Competes, and the New Employment Claim credit. AB 1675 directs additional revenues generated towards funding immigrant legal aid.

Amid GEO Group's latest expansion in California, Assemblymember Lee has also proposed legislation to increase public oversight of immigration detention centers. AB 1801, which already passed the Assembly Floor, ensures that people have adequate time to organize and voice their concerns before their local government approves any new contracts with detention facilities.