Why Texas Still Holds 'Em
Forget oil and gold. In the Lone Star state, the boomtown business is locking up immigrants.
In 1997, with the private prison business booming, the Corrections Corporation of America picked a 64-acre plot near Austin, Texas, for its newest lockup. A medium-security prison, it was named after the company's cofounder and designed for some 500 federal inmates. But the anticipated stream of prisoners never arrived: By the time the T. Don Hutto Correctional Center opened, a glut of private prison beds, along with cca's own poor track record, had left the company nearly bankrupt. Its stock, which once traded at around $45 a share, bottomed out at 18 cents. Several of its facilities were shuttered or sat empty for years, including the Hutto prison, which cca moved to close in 2004.
But Hutto, like cca itself, has risen from the ashes thanks to a sudden source of new business: the Bush administration's crackdown on immigrants. Historically, Mexicans caught illegally entering the country have been dumped back across the border, while immigrants and asylum seekers from other countries were processed and released to await their court dates. (Only those with criminal records were detained.) Most of those released, though, failed to appear for court hearings and removal proceedings, and the government didn't have the resources to go looking for them. So in 2006, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ice) agency ended its traditional "catch and release" policy and instead started incarcerating non-Mexican immigrants—anyone from a Salvadoran migrant to an Iraqi family seeking political asylum—pending their deportation or asylum hearings. Over the two years since, the agency has increased its use of detention facilities by more than half; it now holds some 30,000 people on any given day.
In this new population—and in ice's $1 billion-plus detention budget—cca saw opportunity. In 2004, when Congress passed legislation authorizing ice to triple the number of immigrant detention beds, cca's lobbying expenditures reached $3 million; since then, it has spent an additional $7 million on lobbyists. Among them was Philip Perry, Vice President Dick Cheney's son-in-law, who later became general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, ice's parent organization, which has awarded cca millions in contracts; one of them, in 2006, allowed the company to reopen the old Hutto prison, now christened a "residential facility" housing immigrant families, including small children.
cca isn't the only firm lining up for ice contracts: There's so much money to be made warehousing immigrants that in 2006, Cornell Companies, a private prison firm, sent the state of Oklahoma an eviction notice for more than 800 state inmates housed in its facility in Hinton. The company was negotiating with ice to take in immigrants for more than the roughly $45 per diem that Oklahoma paid.
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State and local governments are also getting in on the action. In 2006, Willacy County, Texas, floated millions in bonds and, in 90 days, built a tent city for immigrants that it leases to ice for $78 a day per detainee. (A room at the local Best Western Executive Inn costs $65.) Run by the Utah-based Management and Training Corporation, a private prison management company, the camp houses up to 2,000 immigrants in a razor-wire-ringed compound holding 10 Kevlar tents of the sort used by troops in Iraq. Detainees have reported problems with heat and air conditioning, as well as maggot-infested food. The county has since approved another $50 million to add space for 1,000 more detainees.
Elsewhere, detention centers have been sued for providing inadequate health care, food services, and education. The aclu of Texas recently settled a lawsuit with ice over the conditions at Hutto for 26 children ages 1 to 17. According to the aclu, they were kept in cells 11 or 12 hours a day, forced to wear prison garb, fed "unrecognizable substances, mostly starches," and denied toys, bathroom privacy, and access to medical care.
According to the Washington Post, more than 80 people have died in ice detention, in many cases because of poor health care. The most famous case is that of Francisco Castaneda, a Salvadoran detained in San Diego for eight months. The government denied his request for a penile biopsy while in detention, arguing that it was an "elective outpatient procedure." He was eventually found to have cancer. His penis was amputated, but the malignancy spread, and he died last year.
On average, ice pays $95 a day per immigrant that it detains, yet research indicates that other, far cheaper, methods can work almost as well in making sure immigrants show up in court. Back in the late 1990s, the agency asked the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice to run a pilot project under which people facing deportation got intensive supervision and connections to social service agencies. More than 90 percent appeared for their hearings—partly, the institute said, thanks to better information about the process. Intensive supervision costs an average of $14 per detainee per day, according to congressional testimony by Julie Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security. Yet in fiscal 2007, ice spent only about $44 million on alternative programs, compared with roughly $1.2 billion on detention—and legislation sponsored last year by representatives Heath Schuler (D-N.C.) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) in the House would authorize the agency to develop another 8,000 detention beds, which must be provided by private contractors such as cca "whenever possible."
cca, meanwhile, is contributing to the detention boom in its own small way: Last year, after inspecting the Hutto center's personnel records, ice officials arrested 10 workers—illegal immigrants themselves.
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I'm against locking people up indefinitely for being from another country. The concept behind immigration enforcement is to help get people that bounced across the border illegally, back to the country they came from.
Mexico figures largely in this debate, but so do some other countries on different continents. And, I think there's always going to be some. But, the enforcement concept is thus: If you didn't apply legally, don't count on being able to stay. And, it's not something that's done out of malice, but rather of necessity. And, some countries where they've really had their head in the clouds on the issue, are paying for it big-time. I submit France as a good case example for consideration on the future of policymaking in regard to immigration.
Joblessness, ghettoes, riots, arrests, not a pretty picture. But, it's also an international issue, Proponents and supporters of illegal immigration in Mexico basically feel that they've got every right to enter the United States at-will. Of course, some of the same people also advocate smuggling drugs and so forth into our country also, and there's an issue there having to do with decades of negligence on the part of the people charged with oversight of the border and enforcement of relevant laws, which essentially means that now all 50 states have an illegal immigration problem that they're going to have to deal with independently. If you remember, Bush is/was a growth advocate, bring in lots and lots of people and stuff, and it's all good. Or, is it? Maybe so, maybe not, depending on who you ask, I think they're all going to run up tight against a phenomenon called global population growth, and it's just going to get ugly, about the time that more states face the spectre of having their water tables basically go away on em.
There comes a point when urban expansion and so forth just don't cut the mustard anymore compared to the number of people trying to gain entry, and that's when it's a shrewd choice to simply say, 'enough is enough, start turning people back, taking them home etc'., which seems to be approximately where we are now. 6.7 billion world population, last count, what's the whole thing going to look like when there's 7,8,9 billion people wandering the face of the earth, looking for a job, a place to stay, and dinner etc?
I call it 'welcome to the world of unintended consequences', we've done such a great job up to this point of eliminating all of mankind's natural enemies, now we can all live to 80, and have 4 kids that all live and stuff, and...and eventually, it's going to get Really Crowded. What will baby 9 billion eat, what country will he/she be born in? People need to find other hobbies, and we need to find some national resolve in dealing with Mexico and other countries, possibly even going to the UN to hold a conference on the issue of immigration and the potential pitfalls of millions of people in motion. If there's going to be anything like national security, then that means there has to be border security, too. The 1800's are behind us, the 1900's are behind us, and what ends up happening to the United States as an independent nation kind of depends on the people living in it today, and how realistic and honest they are about a lot of things, and the same goes for other nations around the world. Did I mention that the US is also several trillion dollars in the hole? I'm for sending people home, politely, professionally, and quickly.
Maybe even put a 10-year moratorium on all legal immigration too. That's my view.
If the Mexican Government weren't so incredibly corrupt Mexico would have a middle class. Mexicans are forced to come over the border to get money to feed their families. I don't think anyone wants to leave their home and family because they need the money. They would much rather work at home don't you think?
The problem is the Mexican government. Mexico has vast natural resources, all of which are grossly mismanaged. What if the United States were to help straighten out that problem? Oh, that's right, no benefit to the US Corporations.
I'm in my mid 50's and i have been a far left liberal for my whole life.
Illegal immigrants are scabs and they need to be prevented from taking jobs from americans. Our REAL unemployment rate (not the Bush admins phony cooked unemployment rate - see Kevin Phillips new book "Bad Money") is very, very high.
The left wing labor organizer Ceaser Chavez held protest marchs against the use of illegal immigrant labor.
He knew they were just a tool of managment used to drive down wages.
Nice story except you essentially lifted it from a pair of Columbia University grad students. Shame on you. For the full version of this story, see www.businessofdetention.com.
Great story as usual folks,
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Bert's send-em-back prescription for undocumented immigration is informed by his mistaken belief that immigration is a result of "decades of negligence on the part of the people charged with oversight of the border and enforcement of relevant laws." It is not "negligence," Bert, but intentional policies instigated from the highest echelons of business and government that created an open border system. See, Big Business and its rightwing allies in Washington not only wanted cheap labor, but they wanted to undermine unions. If the issue is that immigrants force wages down, then those who side with the anti-union agenda of corporations are complicit in inviting undocumented immigration. Unionization of all workers, regardless of status, will raise wages and remove the incentive for corporations and their political enablers to roll out the red carpet for undocumented immigrants and exploiting them. If they had to pay good union wages to all workers, why would they go all the way to Mexico to find them?
Bob Johnson cleverly inoculates himself with the disingenuous premise that he has been a "far left liberal my whole life." That is somehow supposed to bestow credibility to his newfound disdain for immigrant “scabs.” Well, real lefties have a much deeper analysis about immigration that goes to the root of the problem. They do not heap abuse on immigrants, who are the emblem of bad policies made in Washington and Davos. From NAFTA (million of Mexican farmers have been displaced), to wars (4 million Iraqis are now external refugees, while 2.5 are internally displaced—not to mention historical aggressions in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc., that have wrought hell for millions), to global warming (climate refugees are a byproduct, and the U.S. produces 25% of greenhouse gases but is only 5 percent of world's population), policy makers in Washington have made decisions with catastrophic consequences for which they have taken no responsibility. Immigrants are victims of these corporate driven policies and should be treated as such. If you want to name- call, there is a U.S. Congress, Chamber of Commerce, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and a host of other institutions that deserve focus.
Monomotapa
Chicago
Instead of spending a vast amount of our tax dollars on inhumane prisons, ill-conceived walls and border security, perhaps we should consider adjusting our economic policies (i.e. NAFTA), so that people are not forced into immigrating in a desperate search for jobs..."out of necessity."
Because their immigrants I guess they're not human. They even put small innocent children in prisons where they are locked up in a prison cell for 12 hours a day with prison garb. What is this country coming too? http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/detention/hutto.html
The blatent corruption by ICE and all supporting bodies here appalls me. Not to mention the sickening dehumanization that these "law-enforcers" are capable of. Whether or not you believe the indocumented immigrants have rights or not, the dishonesty and exploitation that is taking place by the government CANNOT be justified.
Hey People,
THe oonly injustice about this issue, is that the government doesn't arrest and deport EVERY illegal alien in the USA.
DO you have any idea what happens to illegals in Mexico..?
I was just there a few months ago, and you should have seen what they did when they caught a bunch of Guatemalans... WOW
Now that was street justice...:-)
BIll
ITS NOT FAIR TO LET AN IMMIGRANT FROM ONE COUNTRY STAY IN AMERICA AND NOT ANOTHER JUST BECAUSE ONE IMMIGRANT IS EASIER TO SEND BACK THAN THE REST! AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL BECAUSE HE IS ILLEGAL AND NOT BECAUSE OF WHERE HE/SHE COMES FROM, THATS JUST RACIST AND DISCRIMINATORY!
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