Introduction

With the Trump administration taking effect for the second term, America held its breath for the second time in less than a decade. The country split along a clear ideological divide, with citizens either supporting the administration's promises or opposing its policies. Then came the surprising partnership between Trump and Elon Musk, leaving the entire country to wonder what strategic alignment had brought these two billionaires together. With the establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) came sweeping cuts to federal organizations and comprehensive restructuring of federal contracts, signaling a dramatic shift toward private sector solutions. This type of business-first agenda has long been championed by Republican ideology as a means to advance American interests and improve government efficiency. The Washington Post notes that "In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan launched a push to identify government programs and enterprises that should be shifted to the private sector. President George W. Bush proposed to privatize parts of the Social Security system" (Dwoskin et al., 2025). Historically, these ambitious privatization programs proved unsustainable due to a multitude of implementation challenges, public resistance, and economic complications. The current administration's private sector-favored ideology presents a new and potentially more far-reaching set of repercussions for America. The Trump Administration's pro-business policies threaten core American values by reducing government oversight of international conflicts, undermining public services through privatization, and destabilizing employment for working Americans.

Immigration Enforcement and Reduced Oversight

The Trump Administration's reliance on private sector solutions has dramatically reduced government oversight in immigration enforcement, creating a concerning precedent for how privatization undermines accountability in sensitive areas such as international relations. The administration's expansion of private prison contracts for immigration detention facilities shows how profit-driven entities can operate with minimal transparency in matters of national security and human rights. The Wall Street Journal reports that "The facilities are expected to generate more than $130 million in annualized revenue, the company said" (Albert, 2025). This privatization model becomes particularly troubling when viewed alongside the administration's broader immigration policies, such as the decision to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 10,000 Afghans and 7,900 Cameroonians, putting them on track for deportation (Hesson, 2025). This creates a system where corporate profits directly benefit from increased detention and deportation, incentivizing policies that may conflict with America's humanitarian goals and damage relationships with allied nations who expect the United States to uphold international standards of refugee protection. The Department of Homeland Security announced that protections for Afghans and Cameroonians living legally in the U.S. under TPS will end in May and June, respectively, putting thousands at immediate risk of deportation to countries still impacted by violence, instability, and humanitarian crises (Prianti & Neifach, 2025). This policy shift represents more than just an immigration decision. It signals a fundamental abandonment of America's traditional role as a global leader in humanitarian protection, particularly troubling given that many of the affected Afghans assisted U.S. military operations and now face persecution for their cooperation with American forces. The reduced oversight mechanisms mean that these life-and-death decisions are increasingly influenced by private contractors whose primary obligation is to shareholders rather than to upholding America's moral commitments, especially to those that have historically furthered American interests at the risk of their own livelihoods. When private entities are tasked with processing deportation cases, managing detention facilities, and even providing recommendations on policy implementation, the quality of decision-making suffers. When private entities make decisions about who gets detained, for how long, and under what conditions, the traditional checks and balances that protect both American citizens and immigrants are severely compromised. The long-term consequences extend beyond individual cases to America's broader foreign policy objectives. Allies and international organizations increasingly view the United States as an unreliable partner in addressing global humanitarian crises and refugee protection, a reputation that will prove difficult to repair once the current administration is no longer in power.

Public Services and Corporate Conflicts

The Trump Administration's systematic privatization of public services fundamentally undermines the quality and accessibility of essential government functions, prioritizing corporate profits over public welfare in ways that threaten the promise of equal access to government services. This shift toward private sector management of traditionally public functions creates inherent conflicts of interest where companies must balance their financial duty to shareholders against their contractual obligations to serve the public interest. The Texas Law Review highlights that "The view that corporations should be run for the financial benefit of shareholders presupposes that shareholders' financial interests align with broader societal interests" (Kovvali & Macey, 2025). These conflicts of interest extend far beyond immigration services to defense contracting, where the lack of adequate oversight has led to systematic fraud and abuse. The Washington Post reports that "The Kucheras also plan to plead guilty to claiming some of their costs as business expenses when they weren't, including personal expenses such as a private airplane, hunting trips and keeping up the family's private game preserve, the LBK Ranch, according to a court document" (Leonnig, 2013). This further demonstrates how privatization without proper oversight mechanisms allows companies to exploit public contracts for excessive profits. The George Washington University Law School research on federal procurement reveals that "Political pressure to downsize the federal government has led to increased outsourcing in the form of higher federal spending on service contracts and therefore greater potential for conflicts of interest, particularly impaired objectivity" (Syster, 2024). This highlights how the current system fails to address the fundamental incompatibility between private profit and public service. When essential services like healthcare processing, infrastructure maintenance, and emergency response are handed over to private entities focused on quarterly earnings rather than long-term public welfare, the result is a deterioration in service quality and reduced access for vulnerable populations.

Workforce Destabilization

The Trump Administration's aggressive push toward privatization has created unprecedented instability in the American workforce, systematically dismantling job security protections and undermining collective rights that have historically provided stability for millions of workers. The Department of Government Efficiency's explicit goal to have businesses run government services "as much as possible," as reported by The Washington Post, represents a fundamental shift away from stable public sector employment toward a contractor-based system that prioritizes cost-cutting over worker security and benefits. The Washington Post notes that "The group's immediate focus has been cutting and trying to remake government processes so they're more efficient and transparent. But the ultimate goal is to limit the scope of government and privatize what is left" (Dwoskin et al., 2025). This destabilization extends beyond federal employees to the broader labor movement. The Trump administration's aggression against the federal workforce has reached a new level of intensity, with officials attempting to bust the union representing 47,000 airport screeners (Davidson, 2025). The systematic attack on federal unions sends a clear message to private sector employers that aggressive anti-union tactics will be tolerated and even encouraged by the current administration.

When the federal government abandons its role as a model employer that respects collective agreements, it effectively gives private companies permission to break their own union contracts and eliminate worker protections. The privatization model championed by DOGE not only eliminates thousands of stable government jobs but also replaces them with contractor positions that typically offer lower wages, fewer benefits, and no job security. It also saturates the job market with workers displaced from the widespread cuts made to federal institutions. This transformation fundamentally alters the American employment landscape, shifting economic risk from employers to individual workers and concentrating wealth among corporate executives and their shareholders. The largest part of the workforce is left in disarray. The long-term consequences threaten to replace secure careers with gig work that leaves families vulnerable to economic downturns and corporate restructuring decisions made solely on the basis of quarterly profit margins rather than public wellbeing of the American worker.

Conclusion

The Trump administration's sweeping privatization agenda represents more than a shift in policy preferences. It constitutes a fundamental reworking of the relationship between government and citizens. Through the systematic transfer of public responsibilities to private entities, the administration has created a series of consequences that collectively weaken America's capacity to fulfill its core obligations both domestically and maintain its integrity internationally. The reduced oversight in immigration enforcement not only compromises individual rights and due process but also damages America's global reputation as a leader in humanitarian protection and international cooperation to an unprecedented extent. The privatization of essential public services creates inherent conflicts between corporate profiteering and public welfare, ensuring that vulnerable populations will face reduced access to quality services. Corporate shareholders benefit from downgrading public resources. Most critically, the destabilization of the American workforce through union-busting and the replacement of secure public employment with contractor positions threatens to hollow out the working class that has historically provided economic and social stability throughout America's economy.

These interconnected challenges reveal the fundamental flaw in the administration's business-first approach. The assumption that private sector efficiency automatically translates to better outcomes for American citizens and society as a whole is flawed. History has repeatedly demonstrated that essential public functions require different priorities and accountability mechanisms than those that drive corporate profit. When profit becomes the primary caliber for evaluating services that should prioritize human welfare, national security, and democratic values, the result is a systematic degradation of the social contract that has defined American governance for generations.

The long-term implications extend far beyond the current administration's time in office. Once public institutions are dismantled and replaced with private alternatives, rebuilding the capacity for effective democratic governance becomes more difficult and expensive for future administrations. The expertise, institutional knowledge, and public service values that characterize effective government operations cannot be easily reconstructed after being sacrificed to short-term cost-cutting measures that stand to undercut the foundation of what America stands for. The international relationships, diplomatic credibility, and global leadership that America has cultivated over decades can be permanently damaged by policies that prioritize corporate profits over humanitarian obligations and democratic values, posing a threat to America's position as a superpower.

References

Albert, V. (2025, May 10). Private-prison companies count on immigration payday. Wall Street Journal. http://ezproxy.umgc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/u-s-news-private-prison-companies-count-on/docview/3202261037/se-2?accountid=14580.

Davidson, J. (2025). DHS union-busting attempt sends message in and out of government. The Washington Post. http://ezproxy.umgc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/blogs-podcasts-websites/dhs-union-busting-attempt-sends-message-out/docview/3179968031/se-2?accountid=14580

Dwoskin, E., Stein, J., Natanson, H., & Bogage, J. (2025, March 30). DOGE wants businesses to run government services 'as much as possible'. The Washington Post. http://ezproxy.umgc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/blogs-podcasts-websites/doge-wants-businesses-run-government-services-as/docview/3183383079/se-2?accountid=1458

Hesson, T. (2025, April 12). Trump ends protected status for thousands of Afghans, Cameroonians. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-ends-protected-status-thousands-afghans-cameroonians-2025-04-11/

Kovvali, A., & Macey, J. C. (2025). Private Profits and Public Business. Texas Law Review, 103(4), 711-783.

Leonnig, C. D. (2013). Defense contractors plan to plead guilty to overbilling, paying kickbacks. The Washington Post. http://ezproxy.umgc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/blogs-podcasts-websites/defense-contractors-plan-plead-guilty-overbilling/docview/1325236535/se-2?accountid=14580

Prianti, M & Neifach, M. (2025, May 13). Trump administration: TPS for Afghanistan will terminate July 12, 2025. Global Immigration Blog. https://www.globalimmigrationblog.com/2025/05/trump-administration-tps-for-afghanistan-will-terminate-july-12-2025/

Syster, E. A. (2024). Business risk and competitive integrity: a discretionary approach to organizational conflicts of interest in federal procurement. Public Contract Law Journal, 53(4), 825-853.