Assemblymember Alex Lee Plans to End Tax Breaks for Corporations that Contract with ICE

• Nicholas Chan
• Communications Director, Office of Assemblymember Alex Lee
• (916) 319-2392
• [email protected]

As ICE carries out extrajudicial murders of American citizens, corporations are making windfall profits as collaborators to the federal regime's terror campaign. Mercenaries and private prison operators have inked multi-million federal contracts to enable ICE's indiscriminate acts of violence. While corporate executives boast skyrocketing revenues, young children and families are being kidnapped by masked ICE agents, and warehoused in decrepit immigration detention centers.

Now, Assemblymember Alex Lee plans to introduce legislation to ensure that California does not spend taxpayer dollars to bankroll corporations profiting off of ICE's blatant violations of Constitutional rights and indiscriminate use of violence. Assemblymember Lee's bill, the No Tax Breaks for ICE Contractors Act, will ensure taxpayer dollars are not enriching corporations that aid and abet ICE's campaign of terror.

"ICE is executing Americans, abducting toddlers, and violently breaking into homes and cars to drag innocent people into their unmarked vehicles," said Assemblymember Lee. "More kidnappings mean more profits for ICE contractors. By doing business with armed and masked thugs acting with impunity, corporations are raking in multi-million deals and tearing families apart. ICE must be abolished and its rogue elements prosecuted. The No Tax Breaks for ICE Contractors Act ensures that California does not subsidize corporations that profit off of ICE's terror campaign, and instead directs public investments to our communities."

For industries such as private prison operators, the federal government's terror campaign has been a boon for business. As the CEO of the for-profit prison company CoreCivic told investors, "Our business is perfectly aligned with the demands of this moment." By the second quarter of 2025, the firm reported a total revenue of $538.2 million, a nearly 10% increase from the same time in 2024.

In September 2025, the firm announced a $130 million contract with ICE to operate a 2,560 bed immigration detention center in Kern County. The facility reopened late last year, becoming the 7th and largest immigration detention facility in California. Like other immigration detention centers in California run by private prison firms, detainees and advocates have reported inhumane conditions, mistreatment, and inadequate access to medical care, food and hygiene.

Beyond the private prison industry, corporations that are cashing in on ICE's violence are wide-ranging. They include transportation providers, unmanned aircraft suppliers, armed security services, and software companies. Data firm Palantir, for instance, has a $30 million contract to develop software tracking immigrants; California-based Safe Restraints Inc. manufactures full-body restraint suits used in deportations. Further, private prison company GEO Group expects its transportation subsidiary to make up to an additional $50 million in annual revenue for deportation flights alone.

Many of these same corporations benefit from California's generous tax breaks. The total corporate tax breaks cost the state of California over $7 billion a year.

Assemblymember Lee's proposal prohibits companies that contract with DHS from benefiting from various state tax breaks, including the Employer Pension Contributions Exclusion and Employer Contributions to Health Plans Exclusion provisions. Additional revenues generated will be directed towards funding immigrant legal aid. Assemblymember Lee will announce additional details about the bill when it is introduced.