President-elect Donald Trump's promise to enforce a mass deportation of immigrants is exciting private prison executives, who on earnings calls Thursday salivated at the "unprecedented opportunity" that a second Trump presidency will bring for their profits.

The mass deportations would wrench apart families and shatter the lives of millions of people who possibly spent years or decades establishing themselves, their families and their communities in the country, critics warn. Trump defined much of his campaign by claiming, in dehumanizing and racist terms, that deporting them would improve the economy and reduce crime. Policy experts said that doing so would undermine businesses that rely on their labor, cause an inflation spike and do almost nothing to address crime, since undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than the average American.

Trump advisors are openly discussing the construction of mass deportation camps along the southern border, where tens of thousands of people will be detained as judges process their cases. While Democratic presidents have expanded the incarceration and deportation complex in the last two decades, Trump's first-term record and second-term proposals represent a massive and unprecedented escalation. Private prison executives believe that whatever the effect of the deportations on the rest of American society and economy, they at least will make a lot of money from it.

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