A political action committee tied to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican and chair of the House judiciary committee, received $250,000 last year from Geo Group, a private prison company that operates dozens of detention centers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a report by the nonprofit newsroom Pogo Investigates. The payment arrived 11 days after President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, which tripled the federal government’s immigration enforcement budget to $170 billion.
“The Geo Group’s PAC had not disclosed this. Only American Liberty Foundation had. Both have legal obligations to disclose,” Nick Schwellenbach, author of the Pogo Investigates report, told the Guardian. “This raises a lot of questions about the broader universe of dark money contributions from Geo Group or other private prison companies.”
Federal contractors are generally prohibited from making political contributions, and Geo Group, which contracts extensively with ICE, falls under that restriction, according to campaign finance experts. The Campaign Legal Center, a litigation advocacy organization, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that the company made an illegal, misreported contribution, Saurav Ghosh, the center’s director of federal campaign finance reform, said. “Dark money is an incredibly significant problem in our elections,” Ghosh said. “For the 2024 election, the last cycle we have complete data for, the figure that’s been floated is $1.9 billion.”
Geo Group, headquartered in Florida, operated 52 ICE detention centers across 16 states as of the report’s publication. The facilities have drawn scrutiny over conditions. Detainees at the company’s Delaney Hall facility in New Jersey launched a hunger strike in May to protest living conditions, and this month the state of New Jersey sued Geo Group seeking full access to inspect the facility. In Michigan, family members of detainees held at the North Lake Processing Center have reported being verbally abused by staff and being denied visits, according to the Guardian.
The company’s financial fortunes have risen sharply under the Trump administration. It reported net income of $31.9 million in 2024, the final year of the Biden administration, and $254.3 million in 2025. Geo Group has reopened 6,000 previously idled detention beds at facilities in New Jersey, Michigan, and Georgia. “Last year was the most successful period for new business wins in our Company’s history with new or expanded contracts representing up to $520 million in annualized revenues,” founder and CEO George Zoley told investors, according to the report.
Geo Group also received a two-year, $60 million contract from ICE for skip tracing services to locate undocumented immigrants. Trump signed a $70 billion immigration funding package on June 10 that includes $38 billion for ICE operations. ICE is Geo Group’s largest source of revenue, accounting for 41% of its 2024 income.
The American Liberty Foundation’s websites state the PAC is “not authorized by any candidate,” but multiple reports indicate the group is run by Columbus-based lobbyists who are former Jordan congressional staffers, the Guardian reported. Repeated emails sent by the Guardian to Geo Group asking why the company donated and whether it believes the donation represents a conflict of interest were not answered. Emails sent to Jordan’s communications director seeking details on his relationship with the Super PACs were also not answered, the outlet reported.
Jordan, a ten-term congressman whose district has been heavily gerrymandered to favor rural conservative voters, faces a challenge in the November election from Democrat Josh Kolasinski, a small business owner, and an independent candidate. Kolasinski said the donation is “proof that he is in favor of incarceration that is for profit.”