As a presidential candidate in 2020, Joe Biden pledged to end for-profit immigration detention, saying: "No business should profit from the suffering of desperate people fleeing violence."

The stalled reform coincided with a boom in private prison revenues from ICE contracts during the Biden administration and an increase in the percentage of detainees being held in private facilities, according to an analysis of ICE data by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) shared exclusively with Reuters.