Private Prison Industry Cashing in with Mass Deportation

The United States' immigration detention system overwhelmingly relies on private prison corporations. Private prison corporations, like the GEO Group, CoreCivic, LaSalle Corrections, and the Management Training Corporation have pocketed billions from ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) detention contracts in the past two decades.

Although the Biden administration issued an executive order in January 2021 directing the Department of Justice to phase out its contracts with private prison companies, it notably excluded ICE detention from the order. Since then, the number of immigrants detained by ICE, and the resulting revenues for private prison companies increased.

Contract facilities, including those run by for-profit prison corporations, operate outside the purview of public oversight and accountability. With no one to hold them accountable, private companies, which are incentivized to cut medical staffing and deny care to maximize shareholder return, have maintained a particularly grisly track record of detainee abuse and neglect.

People in detention experience inhumane conditions and rights abuses that include medical neglect, preventable deaths, punitive use of solitary confinement, lack of due process, obstructed access to legal counsel, and discriminatory and racist treatment. The numbers behind the immigration detention system provide a glimpse of the depths of inhumanity experienced on a daily basis by those in detention and the significant public costs, as more taxpayer dollars go towards private prison companies profiting each year off detention contracts.

All of this was before the current administration took office The current President promised repeatedly during the campaign that he would swiftly rid the country of millions of undocumented immigrants. The process necessitates detaining immigrants for weeks or months as they await a ruling from an immigration judge or transportation out of the country, and private prison companies stand to gain.

Congress currently provides funding to detain a daily average of 41,500 noncitizens. As of Feb. 23, the detained population in ICE custody hovered around 43,800. The administration's "border czar," Tom Homan, has said he will need at least 100,000 detention beds, more than double the current capacity, and is taking steps to to try to reduce the number of inspections and agencies that monitor these facilities.

“You’re going to have even less accountability and many more abuses and almost certainly more deaths,” said Heidi Altman, the vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center.

You can read more in "Private Prisons Are Ramping Up Detention of Immigrants and Cashing In" (gift link to first 10 clicks) from the New York Times.