The Tennessee companies profiting from the Trump administration’s immigration agenda

Dozens of Tennessee companies have gotten contracts to supply U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol, including one business with a quick turnaround contract to supply ICE agents in Minnesota with parkas. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Brentwood, Tenn.-based AMI Metals, a global aerospace materials manufacturer, has inked a $1.5 billion deal with the federal government to provide “bulk steel for southwest border barrier construction projects.”

The contract, which has not previously been reported, is one of dozens struck with Tennessee-based companies in support of the Trump administration’s mass immigrant detention and deportation agenda since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1.  Congress last year approval of a $75 million budget boost for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and $64 billion increase for Customs and Border Patrol, or CBP over the next four years.

The AMI-metals contract lists a start date of Feb. 11 and notes the potential for federal payments to escalate to more than $2.2 billion over two years, positioning a business better known for partnering with The Boeing Company to become the biggest Tennessee-based contractor for CBP, a federal contract database shows.

The company’s border contract is the first substantial deal the company has signed with CBP, the data shows. AMI is a subsidiary of the publicly-traded Reliance Inc. Neither AMI Metals nor Reliance responded to questions last week about the contracts.

The company joins an expanding list of Tennessee entities doing business with CBP and ICE as the federal government embarks on an unprecedented immigration enforcement spending spree thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s budget increases. 

Dozens of Tennessee companies land contracts with ICE/CBP

In the 2024 fiscal year, the total value of contracts between Tennessee companies and the federal immigration enforcement agencies stood at $255 million, according to USSpending.gov, a public repository of federal government contract information. 

With eight months remaining until a new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the total contract value for Tennessee businesses this year is approaching $1.6 billion. 

Tennessee-based contract data reviewed by the Lookout includes major longtime players in the business of immigration enforcement, such as private-prison contractor CoreCivic, which is rapidly adding to its portfolio of agreements to operate immigration detention facilities, provide security and transport detainees. A spokesperson for CoreCivic referred questions about the company’s contracts to ICE, and to its recent earnings call.  

Nearly one in four ICE detainees are now in facilities operated by CoreCivic, company executives said during the earnings call.  Patrick Swindle, CEO,  told investors that revenue from ICE has increased more than 100% year over year. ICE is currently in the process of investing more than $38 billion in acquiring properties to use as detention centers, providing more opportunities for CoreCivic growth. The agency did not respond to questions about its contracts with Tennessee companies.

“The expansion of ICE and CBP contracting in Tennessee is part of a nationwide trend, as Congress has provided tens of billions of dollars for the administration’s crackdown,” said David Janovsky, acting director of the Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO, a government watchdog.

POGO’s analysis found ICE contract spending increased 70% between 2024 and 2025. The funding went to 679 companies but nearly 70% of the funding went to the agency’s ten largest contractors, including CoreCivic.

The deals also include contracts with scores of smaller-scale Tennessee companies that have agreed to supply ICE and CBP with products and services to keep the mechanisms of the ramped-up mass detention and deportation plans running.

They include a Nasvhille business fulfilling emergency orders for parkas for agents working during the Minnesota winter, a Mount Pleasant supplying undergarments and a Franklin company supplying mylar blankets for immigrants housed in Texas detention centers; and a Lewsiburg business providing tactical breaching equipment to support ICE’s immigration enforcement actions in communities across the United States.

Janovsky noted the explosive growth in immigration enforcement spending has occurred at the same time the Trump administration has cut staff responsible for monitoring contractors.

“This spending spree has occurred simultaneously with the decimation of DHS oversight capabilities, including major cuts to offices that oversee detention conditions and investigate civil rights abuses,” he said.

It is not clear what economic impact the contracts may bring to Tennessee in terms of jobs or the business taxes. A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development did not respond to questions about whether it is tracking such information.

Spring Miller, an attorney for the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, called the proliferation of contracts with Tennessee companies “deeply distressing.”

“Let’s remember that the profits, to the extent they are coming, are coming from our federal tax dollars,” Spring said. “So instead of being used to invest in the public good, things like schools, public infrastructure, public services, health care, these tax dollars are being diverted to inflict cruelty and, apparently, to enhance corporate profit.”

“The decision by these private companies to put their own profits ahead of the public good and ahead of their concern for their neighbors, and maybe their employees, is deeply distressing,” she said.

Tennessee company fulfills multiple parkas for Minnesota ICE agents

The publicly posted government contract data provides a window into the ways Tennessee companies have been enlisted to support immigration enforcement efforts in real time as they unfolded in recent months. 

In December and January, as immigration agents swarmed the bitterly cold streets of the Twin Cities, Nashville-based Workwear Outfitters inked a series of quick-turnaround contracts with ICE.

On Dec. 19, the apparel company entered a $77,000 contract to deliver parkas to the Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge in St. Paul, data posted on the federal government’s spending site, usaspending.gov, shows.

Four days later, the company secured an $84,900 contract for more parkas “to support an urgent enforcement mission” by the agency’s St. Paul office, the data shows.

The company landed four more contracts in January for “weather-resistant cold-weather jackets to support Homeland Security law enforcement field actions,” totaling about $1.2 million. 

The federal database does not say where all of the January winter clothing orders were destined. Only one of the company’s contracts, listed at $199,000, included a description of its purpose: “For enforcement and removal operations in St. Paul area of responsibility.”

The privately-held Workwear Outfitters has served as a uniform and clothing supplier to the federal government for decades, with contracts ranging between $7.3 million and $67 million annually in the last five years, the federal database shows.

Thus far in 2026, the value of the company’s contracts with ICE and CBP stands at about $67 million, according to the federal spending database.

The company did not respond to messages left last week about its current or future contracts tied to immigration enforcement operations.