With US Immigration Reform Looming, Private Prisons Lobby to Keep Migrants Behind Bars Laura Carlsen - CIP Americas Program
go to original February 21, 2013

Immigrants For Sale is a ground-breaking online documentary series that goes inside the private immigrant detention industry, through the lens of those most impacted, the players behind the trade and the multi-billion dollar profits that fuel it all. View the episodes at MyCuentame.org (bravenewfoundation)

As the immigration reform debate heats up, an important argument has been surprisingly missing. By granting legal status to immigrants and ordering future flows, the government would save billions of dollars. A shift to focus border security on real crime, both local and cross border, would increase public safety and render a huge dividend to cash-strapped public coffers.

This kind of common-sense immigration reform has the multibillion-dollar private prison industry shaking in its boots. Its lobbyists are actively targeting members of Congressional budget and appropriations committees to not only maintain, but increase incarceration of migrants - with or without comprehensive immigration reform.

While a broad public consensus has formed around the need to legally integrate migrants into the communities where they live and work, private prison companies - notably the two giants Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and The GEO Group - know that providing secure legal status for immigrant residents could put a serious dent in their ability to funnel taxpayer money into migrant imprisonment schemes.

Even worse for them, any move to build a strong immigration system that separates immigration infractions from felony crimes would shrink their growing business. The industry thrives off laws that criminalize migrants, including mandatory detention and the definition of immigration infractions as felonies.

CCA and GEO also know that in the current immigration debate they cannot come straight out and say ‘immigrants should be defined as criminals because it makes us rich’ - even though it does. CCA comes pretty close to saying this in its 2010 Annual Report, when it warns that “any changes [in the laws] with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”

So most of their work is behind the scenes. Their number-one goal: to assure that no matter what else happens, Operation Streamline - their goose of the golden eggs - survives, with more money than ever.

Read the whole story at CIP Americas Program

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