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The Baltimore Orioles are finally spenders. Anchored by a $155 million dollar signing of superstar slugger Pete Alonso, Baltimore Sun reporter Jacob Calvin Meyer found the team spent more in free agency this offseason than in the previous seven seasons combined. The Orioles spending spree on supplying a strong roster to support the team’s still-young, talented core. A signal to Baltimore fans that all the pieces matter.
If the Birds soar this year, the new man upstairs made it possible. Principal owner David Rubenstein, who acquired the team in 2024, enables the team to invest substantially more in acquiring outside talent than the previous Angelos family ownership, what Meyer argued was a combination of Rubenstein’s deeper pockets1 and greater desire to win at all costs.
The Orioles’ new owner reaches nine zero wealth through his leadership of The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm Rubenstein founded and co-chairs. And Carlyle’s riches come in part from its business dealings with the Department of Homeland Security. One is Carlyle’s more-publicized $4.2 billion acquisition of ManTech, an IT and AI service military contractor that has $729 million in contracts with CBP and ICE between 2003-2024.3 But, as eyeblack also identified a link between Carlyle and a Georgia warehouse sale that DHS intends to convert into a migrant jail.
An eyeblack analysis of the Trump administration’s warehouse shopping spree identified a Carlyle-backed shell company listed as the owner of a warehouse that DHS intends to use to house as a processing site that will hold 1400-1600 migrant beds. According to ICE, detainees are expected to stay in processing sites for three to seven days before being placed in a planned mass detention center on their way to eventual deportation.
According to DHS, this model will “incorporate all existing detention standards and will maximize operational efficiency, minimize costs, shorten processing times, and promote the safety, dignity, and respect of all aliens in ICE custody.” ICE’s existing detention standards are nothing to boast about unless the agency takes pride in running what Andrea Pitzer classifies as concentration camps.
But how we do know Carlyle, and thus Rubenstein, is linked to the planned ICE jail? For the Lester Freamons among us, I’ll show some work with passable English and an ugly flow chart.