Private prison stocks soar after Trump names Tom Homan ‘border czar’

Nov. 11 (UPI) — Private prison stocks soared Monday after President-elect Donald Trump announced immigration hardliner Tom Homan as the nation’s next “border czar.”

GeoGroup jumped 4.5%, while CoreCivic increased 6.3% following Homan’s promise that he “will run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen.”

Homan is well known, having served during Trump’s first administration as head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our borders,” Trump said in a statement on Truth Social, as Vice President-elect JD Vance suggested starting with 1 million undocumented migrants “and then we can go from there.”

After Trump’s election win last week, analysts predicted a strong rally for the two stocks.

“With Trump returning to the White House, there will be a far firmer embrace of GeoGroup and CXW,” Isaac Boltansky, an analyst at BTIG, told clients on Nov. 6. “More importantly they would take a far more aggressive stance on border enforcement, which would impact the ICE business lines at these firms.”

Both GeoGroup and CoreCivic surged last week, scoring one of their best weekly gains since Trump’s last election win in November 2016. The president-elect had vowed throughout his campaign to crack down on crime and illegal immigration.

CoreCivic — which owns, leases and manages correctional facilities — soared nearly 88% last week before settling for a weekly gain of 69%. GeoGroup increased by almost 76% after the election.

GeoGroup founder and chairperson George Zoley hailed the “unprecedented opportunity” during last Thursday’s earnings call.

“We have 18,000 available beds across contracted and idle secure services facilities, which if fully activated, would provide significant potential upside to our financial performance,” Zoley said last week. “The GeoGroup was built for this unique moment in our company’s and country’s history, and the opportunity it will bring.”