ICE Detainees Use Telmate Video System to Broadcast Facility Conditions as Telecom Regulations Shift

Four men detained at the Folkston ICE Processing Center in rural Georgia used the facility's video calling software to broadcast a five-minute message detailing conditions inside the center and administrative changes across the immigration court system, as reported by The Verge (https://www.theverge.com/report/1008342/folkston-georgia-ice-detention-hunger-strike-video). The broadcast highlights the intersection of correctional communications vendors, private equity ownership, and federal detention operations.

The video was recorded using GettingOut, a proprietary communications platform operated by correctional communications provider Telmate. Telmate is a subsidiary of ViaPath Technologies—formerly Global Tel*Link—which is owned by New York-based private equity firm American Securities. Following the release of the video, which reached legal advocates via an encrypted messaging channel, facility administrators placed all four men in segregation, according to Samantha Hamilton, an attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice. The broadcast was followed by an open letter regarding facility conditions signed by 45 detainees and an ongoing hunger strike involving an estimated 73 detainees.

Telmate and its parent company have faced regulatory penalties and litigation concerning data security, fee structures, and account balances. Earlier this year, Telmate agreed to pay $4.23 million to settle litigation resulting from a 2020 data breach that exposed user names, payment details, and Social Security numbers. In an earlier enforcement action, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Global Tel*Link to pay $3 million for improperly freezing and draining funds from incarcerated people's accounts. Under GettingOut's terms of service, accounts are forfeited after 180 days of inactivity, leaving users dependent on a customer service line to recover deposited funds.

Pricing for detention communications systems has also seen regulatory adjustments. According to data compiled by the Prison Policy Initiative, ViaPath charged users between 18 cents and $1.10 per minute in 2021. In 2024, the Federal Communications Commission capped calling rates between 11 and 25 cents per minute based on facility size; however, the commission voted in 2025 under the Trump administration to increase those maximum caps by up to 83 percent. At Folkston, where detained workers earn $1 per day through facility work programs, a single 10-minute call costs a full day's wages, according to detainee Idris Makhmudov.

Access to communication hardware at Folkston is constrained, with pods of 60 to 70 detainees sharing three to four tablets, Hamilton said. Folkston is owned and operated by GEO Group, a publicly traded corrections company whose stock rose more than 75 percent following election day in November 2024. GEO Group contributed $1.4 million to a political action committee supporting Trump in July, following a $165 million federal contract award earlier in the year.

GEO Group receives more than $1.5 million monthly to operate the 780-bed Folkston facility, which carries a contractual guaranteed minimum occupancy of 544, according to a 2021 Department of Homeland Security budget overview. Concurrently, Syracuse University analysis shows 81 percent of the 143,729 detained cases in Georgia immigration courts over the past year lacked legal counsel. Asylum denials by immigration judges in Atlanta reached 89 percent across 2,072 decisions this fiscal year, compared to 63 percent in 2023, amid broader Department of Justice changes that included replacing more than 100 immigration judges with at least 153 new appointments.