New Documents Reveal Florida Paid Over $573 Million to DeSantis-Connected Immigrant Detention Contractors in 2025
New documents provided to Unicorn Riot have revealed that the state of Florida gave at least $558 million to private contractors last year to work on two immigrant detention centers — including the notorious ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Some of these contractors have been directly linked to Republican Party lobbyists and billionaire businessmen who have donated heavily to Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ political campaigns.
Many of the documents show expenditures for refurbishing the Baker County detention facility in Sanderson, dubbed the “Deportation Depot” by the DeSantis Administration. Protests against the facility have unfolded in recent days. Attorney Vilerka Bilbao told the Florida Alligator that most of her clients detained there have no criminal records. There were many reports of abuses and a campaign to shut down the center; it was mothballed four years ago, but it reopened in September for holding immigrant detainees. (More about this facility on the Global Detention Project.)
That number does not include the amount of money the state has spent on increased salaries for state law enforcement officers, National Guard, and additional private contractors who have been called up to assist and even operate on behalf of ICE.
Download the 200-page document: Purchase orders for Florida detention centers (PDF 11 MB).
| Company Name | Services Provided |
|---|---|
| Baker’s Communications | radio communications |
| CDR Maguire Inc | kitchen staffing |
| CDW Government LLC | network administration & security |
| ContainGo | logistics vehicles |
| Critical Response Strategies LLC | detention contractor staffing |
| Doodie Calls | cleaning facilities and staff |
| GardaWorld Federal Services | translators and barbers |
| Garner | modular office space and aircraft |
| Gothams LLC | portable radios, IT services, detainee phone calls, RFID wristbands, credentialing systems, software |
| Granny’s Alliance Holdings, Inc | construction |
| IRG Global Emergency Management | buses and aircraft |
| Longview Solutions Group, LLC | emergency manager staffing |
| LTS, Inc | fencing and construction |
| Motorola Solutions | radio devices |
| Meridian Rapid Defense Group LLC | traffic management |
| Public Safety Solutions MO LLC | tech support |
| SLSCO LTD | vehicles |
| WeatherSTEM Inc | weather monitoring equipment |
| WILL-BURT Integration & Elevation | construction |
| Williams Communications, Inc | advanced encrypted radios |
Major Political Donors Benefit from Disaster Fund Management and ‘Revolving Door’ Politics
The documents include records of payments made by the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) agency between January and September 2025 to private contractors for detention center construction and administration. FDEM is a state agency that operates under the direction of the governor — it was originally formed in the 1970s to manage and distribute relief funds to victims of natural disasters like hurricanes.
FDEM has now been charged with presiding over two of the state’s newly christened immigrant detention centers: a refurbished facility in Baker County and the South Florida Detention Facility — better known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” which has been supported by the Trump Administration and operated by the Florida agency.
Both Trump and DeSantis have declared multiple states of emergencies over immigration, which has allowed them to redirect billions worth of state and federal funding away from migrant and disaster relief programs to build new migrant prisons and increased law enforcement salaries.
The FDEM invoices obtained by Unicorn Riot show that of the 25 individually named companies, at least nine of them are linked to individuals and groups that in total donated well over $2 million to DeSantis and other Florida Republicans since 2018.
| Company Name | Amount Donated to DeSantis Campaigns, by Linked Individuals and Groups |
|---|---|
| CDR MAGUIRE INC. | $1,900,000 [source 2] |
| Critical Response Strategies LLC | $26,000 |
| GardaWorld Federal Services / GardaWorld Cash | $5,000 |
| Garner Environmental Services | $6,600 |
| GEO Group | $146,500 (Archive) |
| Gothams LLC | $50,000 |
| IRG Global Emergency Management | $99,980 |
| WeatherSTEM Inc. | $3,000 |
| Total | $2,237,080 |
Ordinarily DeSantis would not be allowed to issue state contracts to companies controlled by his campaign donors, but by declaring a state of emergency he has has been able to bypass traditional state regulations that explicitly bar no-bid contracts, effectively allowing him to distribute contracts to whoever he likes with “little to no regulatory oversight,” according to the Orlando Weekly; more about these vendor contributions in the Tampa Bay Times. The Florida Bulldog found 719 “emergency procurement” contracts without competitive bidding, including 45 contracts to CDR Maguire alone.
CDR Maguire Inc represents the company linked to the biggest DeSantis donations by far. Individual campaign contributions made by its married chief executives, Carlos Duart and Tina Vidal-Duart amount to around $1.9 million to DeSantis and the Republican Party of Florida.
CDR was named in the invoice along with the second-largest DeSantis campaign contributors, and largest private prison company in the world: GEO Group Inc. GEO on its own contributed at least $150,000 to DeSantis and Florida Republicans since 2018. Both of these megadonors appear in the invoice records to have joined forces to bill exactly $100,357,654.76 from the state under a company named “GEO-CDR BAKER, LLC.”
Next to nothing has been published about this particular business amalgamation other than the fact that since August 2025 it is a registered LLC entity in Florida. Both the Duarts as well as GEO’s founder George Zoley, and its CEO James David Donahue, are all are named as authorized persons for the company. GEO-CDR BAKER, LLC is also a registered corporate address is shared with CDR Health on Norton Drive in Tallahassee, a company that advertises “migrant health & intake center” services.
GEO has been linked to a wide variety of human rights violations and financial corruption around the globe. This has resulted in the company becoming a lawsuit magnet to such a degree that it contributed to President Joe Biden signing a executive order banning DOJ contracts with private companies. While GEO’s profits decreased slightly, the order did not apply to the company’s contracts with ICE and thus GEO Group continued to rake in billions from the feds. The subsequent Trump Administration reversed Biden’s order as their business dealings with the federal government continue to grow in the present day. GEO ranks among Trump’s largest corporate sponsors, having contributed at least $4 million dollars towards his campaigns to-date.
While not all companies listed in the invoices have public records linking them to political campaign donors, some of them have connections to other companies that do. Longview Solutions Group LLC, is one such company, owned by Roy E. Dunn, who served both as an official for FDEM and as an executive for CDR Maguire. While working for CDR, Dunn boasts on his LinkedIn profile about having secured contracts for the company from FDEM, perfectly illustrating the “revolving door” political phenomenon.
Though the invoice sheet is dominated by companies that have contributed to Republicans, it also includes companies who also donated to Democrats. Companies like CDW Government and Innovative Emergency Management, Inc are examples of this, the latter of which is owned by Madhu Beriwal, who since 1998 has donated heavily to both Democrats and Republicans. More recently Beriwal’s donations have been mostly to Democrats as she was tapped by then-President Biden to serve on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council back in 2023. She continues to play a major role in simultaneously managing and benefiting from various state and federal disaster related contracts.
Another company called IRG Global Emergency Management appears to have invoiced for purchasing multiple Boeing aircraft in a $19.68 million purchase order dated June 18, 2025. Another company called Garner appeared to purchase four Boeing 777 aircraft for nearly $6 million on the same day. The documents also show that the Salesforce platform is used to manage a lot of this purchase order activity.
Back in October of last year, federal officials from the Department of Homeland Security claimed that Florida had been granted $608 million dollars from the FEMA budget to pay for new detention center construction. Initial construction and operations costs came entirely out of Florida’s state budget. DeSantis has promised that a full reimbursement from the federal government is coming at some time in the future. Florida has yet to receive any federal funding for the detention centers as lawsuits challenging their legality continue. Separately the state received $28 million and local agencies $10 million last September for expenses relating to 287(g) enforcement programs.
May 2025: New Federal Task Forces Under 287(g) Could Form ‘ICE Army’ From National Guard, State, Local & College Police
Florida’s ‘Immigrant Enforcement Operations Plan’ and ‘Operation Vigilant Sentry’
The state’s updated strategy and policies outline how exactly it intends to carry out ramped up anti-immigrant sweeps, using these detention centers to hold people they capture. This 37-page document, entitled “Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan,” defines Florida as a frontline state in the battle against illegal immigration, calling for dramatically increased state funding in order to assist ICE and the federal government’s latest dramatic push to curb immigration numbers. This document has previously been reported in regional media.
The primary program is called “Operation Vigilant Sentry” and many of the invoices noted above are attributed to the “OVS” project. On page 11 the state notes, “The State of Florida is presently operating under Executive Order 23-03 and its subsequent extensions to support OVS in surveillance and apprehension of migrants.”
On Page 18 a diagram for “Homeland Security Task Forces” is shown, which we included in a report last June on the Homeland Security raid on Minneapolis’ Lake Street.
Florida Enforcement Operations Plan (via court filing PDF).
The immigrant enforcement plan admits that ICE does not have the logistical capacity to process the massive expected increase in migrant detainees on its own, and thus desperately needs cooperation and assistance from the state level — particularly border states like Florida — in order to even have a chance at accomplishing its objectives. Thus all of Florida’s estimated 48,000 law enforcement officers have been deputized to carry out migrant detention and deportation duties on the feds’ behalf.
Thousands of Florida National Guard have also been used as prison bus drivers making trips to and from detention centers while also being responsible for guarding those detention centers, as well as the border. Some National Guard attorneys — commonly known as JAGs for serving in the Judge Advocate General Corps — have also been authorized to serve as immigration judges within the DOJ. Though there is still an ongoing shortage of immigration judges, around 100 of the previous 700 immigration judges were ousted by the Trump Administration in 2025. Florida has yet to use such judges due to major uncertainty and concerns over legality, but some JAG’s are currently being used to preside over immigration trials in New York state.
Dramatically increased state funding toward anti-immigrant operations in Republican-controlled frontline states like Florida and Texas has given ICE the ability to dedicate more of its resources to Democratic Party-controlled states like Minnesota. This contributed to the recent deployment of around 3,000 additional ICE officers and other federal agents to that state.
If Trump’s latest surge of ICE officers to Minnesota was intended to extract concessions from his Democratic Party rivals it might be having the opposite effect, as both Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have repeatedly condemed the president’s program. Resistance from local communities in Minnesota has been no less intense, as large scale protests, mutual aid projects, and clashes with ICE and their far-right supporters continue on even at the peak of a bitterly cold winter season.
In Florida too there is growing opposition to the government’s anti-immigration push as the Indigenous Miccosukee Tribe in conjunction with a variety of different environmental groups have filed lawsuits intending to have the newly constructed detention centers shut down on environmental grounds. The ACLU has also filed a suit against the federal government charging the Trump administration with violating the constitutional rights of migrant detainees.
Resistance has been brewing within the prisons themselves too. Back in July 2025 prisoners went on hunger strike decrying inhumane conditions at Alligator Alcatraz, which was also reportedly the site of a prisoner uprising a month later.
The operating cost of Alligator Alcatraz alone is estimated to be costing the state of Florida around $450 million per year. As previously stated, the federal government has promised to reimburse the state but only to the tune of $608 million — this does not include operating costs for Baker County Detention Center.
Florida’s immigrant enforcement plan itself acknowledges that “the federal government has shown itself to be very hesitant to commit to any form of reimbursement to past or future immigration operations.” and that, “There may come a time when, without federal assistance, a long-term immigration support mission may become fiscally untenable.”
Summary and Possible Outcomes
Regarding efforts to shut down the detention centers, much appears to be riding on the ongoing lawsuits filed by Florida’s various indigenous, environmental and civil liberties groups. Those lawsuits have revolved around the central question of who is responsible for the prisons, be it the state or the feds. The state has argued that it — more specifically FDEM — is the legally responsible body, while the claimants have argued it is the feds, since the construction and maintenance costs are at least partially expected to come out of the federal budget.
Before constructing any federal detention facility, federal law stipulates that an environmental assessment study must be conducted first in order to determine the planned facility’s impact to the local environment. Yet such a study was never conducted for the quickly assembled Alligator Alcatraz or the Baker County detention centers as state law doesn’t have such requirements.
This represents just one of the many ways in which private contractors have been able to skirt around government regulations while funneling billions worth of taxpayer dollars originally set aside for disaster relief into their own accounts — often via no-bid contracts. The result is a rapidly growing multi-billion-dollar prison industrial complex, continued environmental destruction of Indigenous lands and the widespread torture of countless migrant prisoners. Florida and the wider U.S. have long been the site of such abuses, but the unprecedented and shocking manner of how Alligator Alcatraz came into existence has brought all of of these issues into crystal-clear focus.
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