Private prison industry shifts focus to immigrant detention centers, funding immigration hawks By Dario McCarty
June 21, 2022 1:19 pm
Vice President Kamala Harris with President Joe Biden as he signed several executive orders directing immigration actions for his administration at the White House on Feb. 02, 2021 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo by Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
Early in his term, President Joe Biden signed an executive order barring the Department of Justice from renewing existing contracts with for- profit prisons. Many activists and prison reform advocates hoped this signaled the beginning of the end of private prisons in America.
But the private prison industry instead shifted focus to a different form of for-profit detainment: private immigration detention centers.
This shift toward immigrant detention, which is now estimated to be a nearly $3 billion industry, comes at a time when for-profit prison companies have spent tens of thousands of dollars donating to politicians who support border security and immigration enforcement policies that would increase the number of detained immigrants in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facilities.
The turn to immigration detention
As of June 2022, more than 24,000 immigrants are being detained by ICE and Border Patrol. However, these agencies do not have the necessary infrastructure to house those detainees. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security – which Biden’s executive order ban does not extend to – contracts this responsibility to private companies. As a result, 79% of detained immigrants are held in facilities that are privately owned or operated.
Many immigrant rights activists contend that these private detention centers lack the necessary accountability and oversight to prevent abuse. Inadequate access to medical services and other alleged human rights abuses are well-documented in for-profit immigration detention centers. Some of the most egregious claims of medical abuse occurred at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga., owned by the private company LaSalle Corporations, where multiple detained immigrant women reportedly underwent forced hysterectomies and other invasive and unnecessary gynecological surgeries.
Nevertheless, the federal government’s immigrant detainment policy has continued to be a boon for private prison companies including GEO Group and CoreCivic, the two biggest companies in the field. In an SEC filing from November 2021, GEO Group detailed how despite the loss of $125 million in contracts due to Biden’s executive order, “record increases in migrant flows at the U.S. border have acted as a tailwind” have more than made up for the profits lost.
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