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President Donald Trump has tapped David Venturella, a former ICE official and executive at the private prison company GEO Group, to replace Todd Lyons as head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. GEO Group saw its profits jump from $32 million in 2024 to more than $254 million in 2025 as the Trump administration expanded government contracts with ICE jails nationwide.

Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, says private prison companies have an “intricate” relationship with ICE. “It’s really a revolving door,” she says, pointing out that Venturella worked for ICE under Presidents Bush and Obama, then went to GEO Group before this latest appointment by President Trump. “It’s really hard to see where the interests of ICE end and those of private prison companies begin,” says Ghandehari.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

As Paul Barrett said, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, well, he officially resigned from the agency just about a year after his appointment to oversee Trump’s rapid expansion of nationwide ICE raids, immigration detention and deportations. Yesterday was Todd Lyons’s official last day heading up ICE, after he announced in April he’d be stepping down by the end of May. Lyons was never confirmed by the Senate. During his tenure, he repeatedly defended ICE’s tactics, even as the agency faced mounting scrutiny over its agents’ violent crackdown on protesters and dehumanizing treatment of immigrants.

ICE and Prison Guards Retaliate Against Detainees and Protestors at Delaney Hall

The man who continues to be ICE head today, who takes over from Lyons, Trump tapped David Venturella, a former ICE official, private prison executive, who was the vice president at GEO Group, to replace Lyons. Senator Elizabeth Warren is demanding Venturella disclose more details about his ties to GEO Group, which, according to Public Citizen, saw its profits jump from $32 million in 2024 to more than $254 million last year, as the Trump administration expands government contracts with ICE jails nationwide. Senator Warren’s letter to Venturella said, in part, quote, “You worked at the GEO Group, the largest private prison contractor operating immigrant detention facilities across the U.S., for over a decade prior to joining ICE; that history, and........

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