Ice
December 12, 2011
Private prison to pay $21 million to short-changed employees after FLSA violations
The Department of Labor and Management & Training Corporation reached an agreement to disperse back wages to current and former MTC employees located at the Willacy County Processing Center. Former employees will need a valid photo ID and their Social Security card.
In 2008, ICE, in consultation with the DOL, determined that the Service Contract Act was applicable to operations at the WCPC. As a result, SCA back wages were retroactively applied, awarding back wages to 1,716 current and former MTC employees at WCPC. The amount totaled approximately $21 million...
LINK - KRGV.com
June 27, 2011
Private prison guard arrested for sexual abuse of immigrant detainee
A guard at an immigrant detention center in South Texas is scheduled to appear before a federal judge after spending the weekend in jail on a charge that he sexually abused a detainee in 2008.
The Justice Department accuses 31-year-old Edwin Rodriguez of Raymondville of having sex with a woman who was awaiting deportation at the Willacy Detention Center in October 2008. The court hearing is set for Monday afternoon.
Rodriguez was an employee of Management & Training Corporation, or MTC, a contractor that operates the facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement...
LINK - VictoriaAdvocate.com
March 18, 2011
Expose on Private Prisons (CCA, ICE, ALEC, etc)
A Boom Behind Bars
Private jail operators like the Corrections Corporation of America are making millions off the crackdown on illegal aliens
Selvin Cardenas's three months in the U.S. immigrant detention system began in the usual way, with a knock at his door. At 5 a.m. on Apr. 21, 2009, three men in suits spotted him through the window of his Houston home. "We're here for you," one of them said. "You're Selvin Cardenas. Open up the door."
Cardenas says he arrived in Miami legally from his native Honduras in 1990, at the age of 32, working aboard a ship. He moved to Houston and for nearly two decades lived there working as a pizza deliveryman, dishwasher, and truck driver. He has four kids born in the U.S., in addition to one born in Honduras, and when the agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appeared, his instinct was to wake his children and say goodbye...
LINK - BusinessWeek.com
June 1, 2010
ICE investigating sexual assaults at CCA-operated private prison
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is investigating allegations that a guard at a central Texas detention facility sexually assaulted female detainees on their way to being deported.
Agency spokesman Brian Hale said Friday the guard has been fired and Corrections Corporation of America, which manages the prison, is on probation pending the investigation's outcome.
Several women who were held at T. Don Hutto detention facility in Taylor, Texas, were groped while being patted down and at least one was propositioned for sex, ICE said...
LINK - KansasCity.com
January 13, 2010
CCA confirms plans to house CA state inmates at California City private prison
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has not renewed its contract with Corrections Corp. of America to manage more than 2,000 inmates now housed in California under the Criminal Alien Requirement program.
The contract, which has been awarded to Cornell Cos., will take about $22 million annually – about 12 cents per diluted share – off CCA's bottom line, estimated Avondale Partners analyst Kevin Campbell. Nashville-based CCA – which did get a renewed BOP deal to manage 1,200 inmates in New Mexico – had been expected to earn $1.40 per share in 2010.
In a statement, CCA President and CEO Damon Hininger said the company believes the BOP's move is based primarily on "escalating federal wage determination costs in California, and does not reflect the quality of operations our company and staff have provided to the BOP…"
LINK - NashvillePost.com
October 6, 2009
Napolitano announces reforms at immigrant detention centers
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday a package of reforms aimed at making detention centers for immigrants in Arizona and throughout the nation safer, more humane and less costly.
The reforms include separating immigrants with criminal records from those who are merely seeking asylum and finding alternatives to detention for those who pose no real danger to the public.
Alternatives could include putting ankle bracelets on immigrants to keep track of their whereabouts, Napolitano said. She estimated that alternatives would cost $14 per day at most compared with more than the $100 per day it costs to detain someone. Detaining immigrants cost nearly $2 billion in 2008…
LINK - AZCentral.com
October 1, 2009
Prison privateer CCA abuse/neglect case from San Diego heads to U.S. Supreme Court
A lawsuit filed by a now-deceased man over inappropriate medical care while he was in the custody of U.S. immigration officials in San Diego is set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Francisco Castañeda, an immigrant from El Salvador, died in February 2008 after a battle with penile cancer. Castañeda had sought medical care for symptoms while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a contract detention facility in San Diego, and later at an agency facility in the Los Angeles area.
Castañeda, who had been in the United States since age 10, had landed in detention after a short drug-related sentence in state prison triggered deportation proceedings…
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune)
September 21, 2009
Private company plans illegal-immigrant prison in Adelanto
A private prison operator has plans to build a 2,200-bed detention center that holds illegal immigrants on 51 acres near two other local prisons.
City Council will decide on Wednesday whether to approve the GEO Group Inc.'s development plan and conditional use permit to construct a new correctional facility on the northeast corner of Raccoon Avenue and Rancho Road.
But the proposed facility also hinges on GEO Group winning a federal contract from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to Adelanto City Manager Jim Hart…
LINK - VVDailyPress.com
August 24, 2009
New private prison company wants to build in W. Virginia
Editor's note: This is the first of two stories on the illegal immigrant detention center proposed for Pendleton County, W.Va. Tuesday's story will look at those opposed to the facility and why they're against it.
BRANDYWINE, W.Va. - The owner of a company proposing to build a privately funded illegal alien detention center here said he will not go forward with the plan if a majority of local residents oppose the controversial project.
"We won't come unless we're wanted," George Barlow, head of GSI Professional Corrections, said by telephone Wednesday.
Barlow also won't build the center if he can't receive a long term contract from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement…
LINK - RockTownWeekly.com
August 6, 2009
U.S. to announce plan to overhaul immigration detention system
…Details are sketchy, and even the first steps will take months or years to complete. They include reviewing the federal government's contracts with more than 350 local jails and private prisons, with an eye toward consolidating many detainees in places more suitable for noncriminals facing deportation — some possibly in centers built and run by the government.
The plan aims to establish more centralized authority over the system, which holds about 400,000 immigration detainees over the course of a year, and more direct oversight of detention centers that have come under fire for mistreatment of detainees and substandard — sometimes fatal — medical care.
One move starts immediately: The government will stop sending families to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former state prison near Austin, Texas, that drew an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit and scathing news coverage for putting young children behind razor wire…
LINK - MercuryNews.com
July 30, 2009
Report finds detainees’ rights routinely violated in U.S. immigrant detention
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been systematically violating its own minimum monitoring standards in regulating immigration detention centers across the country, according to a new report released Tuesday. The report is based on an analysis of previously unreleased inspection data on dozens of ICE facilities between 2001 and 2005.
In recent months, Facing South has reported on the problems in U.S. immigrant detention, highlighted by the mounting number of immigrant deaths in ICE detention centers. For the past year, reports of abuse, neglect, inhumane treatment, and inadequate health care in immigration custody have been surfacing across the country. Immigrant rights groups have criticized ICE's detention standards and inspection procedures, and have also steadily lodged complaints about detainees' rights being violated…
LINK - SouthernStudies.org
June 16, 2009
HDNet’s ‘Dan Rather Reports’ Investigates the Billion-Dollar Prison Prospecting Industry
HDNet's "Dan Rather Reports" presents a unique look at how your tax dollars are fueling the "recession proof," billion-dollar prison prospecting business. The episode reports on a federal agency charged with managing a detention system that this year alone will cost taxpayers $3.1 billion, a price tag that has doubled since 2003.
The federal government has more than 90,000 people in custody on an average night, and only 25,000 beds to put them in. So the U.S. Marshals, along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been outsourcing more than 65,000 detainees to a far-flung network of more than 1,800 state, local and private contract prison facilities. The Marshals Service itself has custody of tens of thousands of prisoners, but does not own nor operate a single detention facility
The number of Federal detainees has sky rocketed in recent years - more than 2000 percent since 1981 - and with the increasingly severe shortage of federal beds, enterprising local governments and private prison companies have been happy to fill in the gap — for a price. But it's the taxpayers who are ultimately footing the bill.
So, every morning, the routine begins. U.S. Marshals monitor the crush of inmates lining up for the vans that will take them to their court hearings. These vans will then have to take them back to a jail cell for the night and, more often than not, that cell will be at a county or city jail renting beds to U.S. Marshals with funds from the U.S. Government. It is a nation-wide, billion-dollar game of musical beds.
A retired supervisor with the U.S. Marshals Service, Al Patino remembers shuffling inmates to and from Hawaii where thousands of dollars were spent to fly prisoners on regular commercial flights. Even after Hawaii, when Patino was serving in El Paso, TX, the cost of housing and transporting prisoners was staggering. "I remember specifically signing checks between two, two and a half to three million on a monthly basis for that county," Patino said.
While the government is looking into questions about the increase in detention costs and how to decrease this taxpayer burden, the new government office in the Justice Department that was created to manage this massive system got derailed when immigration detention was moved into the Department of Homeland Security
"Dan Rather Reports: Bed of Controversy" premieres on HDNet, Tuesday, June 16 at 8:00 p.m. ET with an encore presentation at 11:00 p.m. ET to accommodate West Coast Prime Time.
About HDNet
HDNet (www.hd.net, twitter.com/hdnet) is a network that is original, thinks independently and delivers unique content and provocative, authentic programming that appeals to men of all ages, delivered in true high definition.
HDNet is the exclusive, high definition home for popular, original programming, including television's only HD news feature programs "HDNet World Report," and the Emmy Award winning "Dan Rather Reports," featuring legendary journalist Dan Rather. Only HDNet goes beyond the headlines to deliver real news that is redefining the way we look at our world. HDNet News is provocative, sometimes controversial and always relevant - telling the important stories of our time in-depth, with attitude and with independence.
June 14, 2009
Another private prison detainee dies in custody
An autopsy shows a detainee at a federal immigration detention center in south Georgia died of natural causes.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said Thursday 39-year-old Roberto Martinez Medina died of myocarditis, an inflammatory heart disease.
Martinez, a Mexican national, was being held at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin - which is operated by the same company that plans to open a similar facility in Gainesville, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Martinez died March 11 at St. Francis Hospital in Columbus…
LINK - AccessNorthGA.com
May 26, 2009
County OKs mega-prison for immigrant detainees
A private company's plans to build a mega-prison that could house immigrant detainees has received the go-ahead from the county.
Last month, after a temporary holdup over access to sewer lines, the county planning commission approved plans for Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corp. of America to build a "secure detention facility" on a 40-acre parcel in east Otay Mesa.
The parcel is close to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility and also to the private prison company's San Diego Correctional Facility, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement houses immigrant detainees who are awaiting deportation or a decision in an immigration case…
LINK - SignOnSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune)
May 18, 2009
Mentally ill detainees’ treatment at hospitals worries advocates
… Menasche said she was told in a meeting with Ziemer and ICE officials that ICE detainees are being automatically denied these rights, without any individual assessment of whether such a step is needed. The policy comes from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Menasche said.
She also said that before shackling a patient, the law requires that specific findings have to be made in the individual's case.
The detainees are taken to API from a private immigration jail in Otay Mesa run by Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the nation. It has contracts to provide thousands of jail beds to the federal immigration agency…
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune)
April 13, 2009
State seeks more federal aid for cost of keeping illegal immigrant inmates
Reporting from Washington — Fifteen years after Congress promised that Washington would help states pick up the tab for imprisoning illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, California is receiving but a fraction — less than 12 cents on the dollar — of its nearly $1-billion annual cost.
The unfulfilled promise is perhaps the most glaring example of the federal government shortchanging California.
Officials from states greatly affected by illegal immigration long have argued that their taxpayers should not have to bear the burden for Washington's failure to control the border…
LINK - LATimes.com
April 3, 2009
Revealed: 90 immigrants have died in US custody in last 5 1/2 years
At least 90 immigrants have died while in US custody since October 2003, a document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed Friday. At least 32 deaths occurred at facilities run by private contractors. The document — which has received little to no attention — also displays an apparent carelessness on the part of prison officials, whose records of the deaths change and omit inmate deaths over time.
Moreover, it shows that prison officials are now recording even fewer details about immigrants' deaths, possibly in response to periodic scrutiny of the list. A previous list that covered the period up until 2007 included the locations of deaths; the current list records either the location or the facility where the inmate was held, without any evident pattern.
The list also reveals that one private company, the Corrections Corporation of America, had at least 18 deaths under its watch, and that 32 of the 90 deaths occurred while immigrants were held in private prisons. 37 of the deaths occurred at regional facilities and 20 at federal centers…
LINK - RawStory.com
March 3, 2009
Despite a Crashing Economy, Private Prison Firm Turns a Handsome Profit
While the nation's economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm that is paid millions by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates. In the last year and a half, GEO announced plans to add a total of at least 3,925 new beds to immigration lockups in five locations. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the U.S. Marshals Service, which hire the company, will fill the beds with inmates awaiting court and deportation proceedings.
GEO reported impressive quarterly earnings of $20 million on February 12, 2009, along with an annual income of $61 million for 2008 – up from $38 million the year before. But the company's share value is not the only thing that's growing. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit prison firm, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death…
LINK - CorpWatch.org
February 10, 2009
Private prison company CCA profits jump thanks to Calif, Feds
Private prison operator Corrections Corporation of America said Tuesday its fourth-quarter profit jumped 16 percent on increases in its per diem rates and prison population. Corrections Corp. earned $40.5 million, or 32 cents per share, compared with $34.9 million, or 28 cents per share, for the same quarter last year.
Revenue rose 8.8 percent to $414.4 million from $380.8 million in the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a profit of 30 cents per share on $420 million in revenue. The increase in revenue was mainly a result of a 5.2 percent increase in per diem rates, along with 4.1 percent growth in inmate populations.
Management revenue from federal customers rose 7.5 percent to $162 million, while management revenue from state customers increased 13 percent to $218.3 million. Corrections Corp. attributed the larger inmate populations to increased populations from the states of California and Idaho, as well as from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement…
LINK - Forbes.com
February 3, 2009
The Big Business of Family Detention
When President Barack Obama made it his first act in office to shut down Guantánamo Bay prison, he effectively ended one shameful chapter in our country's embarrassingly large book of human-rights abuses. It was not so much redemption as a reminder that this country has a long, long way to go when it comes to detention, due process, and the Geneva Convention. It's not just alleged terrorists that are suffering from our inhumane treatment. It's also children.
The United States is currently holding 30,000 immigrants in detention while they await hearings. The country operates three family immigrant detention centers, the most notorious of which is the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, a former prison currently under the private management of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The 600-bed center detains families who are awaiting asylum or immigration hearings, a major departure from past federal policy. Pre-September 11, families charged with immigration violations (which are not criminal violations) or who came to the country asking for asylum were generally allowed to live independently as long as they agreed to attend a hearing…
LINK - Prospect.org (The American Prospect)
February 3, 2009
Immigration detention center considered for L.A. area
The federal government is looking for contractors to build a possible detention center in the Los Angeles area that would hold up to 2,200 illegal immigrants and others suspected of violating immigration laws.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said last week that the agency was "exploring the feasibility of such a project," though she said no definitive decisions had been made.
"ICE is continuing to review its options to determine how to best meet the agency's future local and national detention needs," she said…
LINK - LATimes.com
December 8, 2008
Vigil seeks end to Hutton center contract
More than 100 people held a vigil Sunday night outside the Williamson County Courthouse to ask county commissioners to halt a contract with the T. Don Hutto Residential Center where dozens of immigrant children and families are detained.
"The practice of incarcerating families and children, with little regards to their civil rights, is destructive … to our community as a whole," retired pastor Milton Jordan said.
Protesters held signs that said "Prison is no place for children" and "Shut down T. Don Hutto" while singing the civil rights standard "We Shall Overcome," the Austin American-Statesman reported in its online edition…
LINK - Chron.com (The Houston Chronicle)
October 1, 2008
Feds say Wash. immigration guards weren’t checked
A privately run immigration lockup in Tacoma hired security guards without required preliminary background checks and then lied about it, according to authorities.
Sylvia Wong, a human relations specialist with GEO Group Inc., the private contractor that runs the Northwest Detention Center, was charged in U.S. District Court on Tuesday with lying to federal investigators when she claimed in April she did not falsely generate documents.
"Clearly this is a cause for concern," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement…
LINK - IHT.com (International Herald Tribune)
September 4, 2008
Officials in prison towns adjust to bad neighbors, tout benefits
Vicki Kilvinger, mayor of Florence, Ariz., admits when people hear the name of her town, they often think of prisons. Florence, Ariz., not only has nine prisons, but there's also Florence, Colo., home of the Supermax prison.
But Kilvinger and a number of officials who live in prison communities see a lot of advantages to housing a community of offenders inside fences.
They debunked concerns raised by some Pahrump residents leery that a planned federal detention center being built by Corrections Corporation of America will reduce property values, bring unsavory relatives and friends to town to visit the inmates, lead to escapes and not result in the good-paying jobs that have been promised…
LINK - PahrumpValleyTimes.com
July 25, 2008
ICE blocks 9-1-1 calls from T. Don Hutto
Outgoing 9-1-1 calls placed by immigrants detained at T. Don Hutto Residential Facility in Taylor will soon be blocked after Immigration Customs Enforcement changes the phone system in the former prison.
The block affects telephones used specifically by immigrants housed in the facility. Also blocked will be all incoming phone calls.
The change came as part of a change in the contract between Williamson County and Immigration Customs Enforcement billed as "Modification … relating to Low Cost Telephone Services" on the county commissioners' agenda Tuesday…
LINK - TaylorDailyPress.net
June 13, 2008
11 Arrested in Sweep: Federal, state, local agencies check Shasta’s sex offenders
…About a half-dozen of the men were arrested at downtown Redding motels, said Redding police Sgt. Mike Wood. Called Operation FALCON, an acronym for "Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally," the sweep is part of an annual national event organized by the U.S. Marshals Service, Wood said..
Split into about seven teams, the law enforcement officers — from the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, Redding Police Department, Shasta County Marshal's Office, Shasta County Probation Department, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Marshal's Office and the Shasta County district attorney's office — conducted a countywide sweep, he said.
"It's kind of a zero tolerance," Wood said…
LINK - Redding.com
June 5, 2008
Suit over immigration jail overcrowding is settled
A class-action lawsuit alleging chronic overcrowding at an immigration jail on Otay Mesa was settled Wednesday. The lawsuit said the overcrowding at the facility, run by the Corrections Corporation of America for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, subjected immigration violators to health and safety risks. It also alleged the conditions violated due-process rights under the Constitution.
Before the suit was filed in January 2007, the jail was so overcrowded it was "triple celling" hundreds of detainees, the suit alleged. That involved putting three people into cells designed for two, with the third sleeping on the cell floor in a plastic shell or "boat."
The facility housed 1,000 people at one point. After the suit was filed, federal authorities moved out more than 100 inmates, according to the ACLU. According to ICE, the facility now holds no more than 700 people…
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune Online)
June 3, 2008
Private Aurora ICE detention facility gets expansion OK
Plans for a $72 million expansion of a privately owned and operated illegal immigrant detention facility can proceed after Aurora City Council members said they weren't deciding federal immigration policy.
Anthony Paradiso, a property owner near the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract facility, filed an objection over the planned expansion from 400 beds to 1,500 beds. He recently withdrew his objection and the council voted Monday to cancel it's review of the Planning Commission's approval of the plan.
About 20 people spoke in opposition, mainly on humanitarian grounds…
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune)
June 2, 2008
Colorado: Protesters Fight Immigration Center Expansion
Protesters taking over the Aurora Municipal Building Monday evening. They came to protest the city's expansion plans for the current immigrant and custom's enforcement holding center at 30th and Peoria. Many protesting say the center violates the rights of immigrants being held there.
"It's inhumane to the people that's working there", said Scott Kwasny of Jobs for Justice. Protesters say the company looking to build and run the ice facility the GEO group is an international company that doesn't help the local economy. "In the United States, GEO is very aggressive at keeping labor unions out", said Kwasny…
LINK - MyFoxColorado.com
June 1, 2008
A lethal limbo for migrants
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has repeatedly told Congress that it spends millions of dollars on medical care for detained immigrants facing deportation. But many of the immigrants are already sick when detained, and the public health nurses and doctors at the detention centers are too overwhelmed to treat them adequately.
Daniel Javier Solando, a Honduran immigrant turned over to ICE after serving time in a California state prison for bankruptcy fraud, witnessed Arellano's final days. He is appealing a deportation order and faces months, even years, in detention while his case makes its way through a court system burdened by a backlog of similar cases. As a result, Solando fears that he too might die because he won't get the medicine he needs to control his high blood pressure. Currently held at a detention center in Florence, Ariz., he has twice been rushed to an emergency room in the city. His medical records, provided to me by his pro bono attorney, indicate at least one of those visits might have been because he had a seizure…
LINK - LATimes.com (The Los Angeles Times)
May 31, 2008
Multi-agency operation surges against gangs, crime
VICTORVILLE — In an effort to combat the rising gang and drug problem in the Victor Valley, various law enforcement agencies will begin saturating the pre-designated high-crime areas for the next 30 days, according to officials.
"We're seeing that the (gang problem) is getting worse and worse and worse," said San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod. As a response to the problem, various agencies including the Sheriff's Department, California Highway Patrol, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, San Bernardino County Probation and United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be embarking on Operation Desert Heat, which will focus its efforts on gang and criminal activity in the Victor Valley…
LINK - VVDailyPress.com
May 27, 2008
County Jails Welcome Immigrants
The immigration crackdown is filling county jails across the country with immigrants who have been torn away from their jobs and homes. Tens of thousands of arrested immigrants are bedding down in county jails while they await court dates and eventual deportation.
As the immigration crackdown escalates, county commissions and sheriff departments are increasingly signing contracts with the federal government to house arrested immigrants. For the most part, county governments are eager to receive immigrants into their jails.
The per diem payments they receive from two federal agencies—Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Marshals Service (USMS)—are covering shortfalls in county budgets, funding the hiring of new deputies, and paying for jail expansion projects. Although some localities are complaining of jail overcrowding and a diffusion of law enforcement priorities, more and more local governments are cashing in on the immigration crackdown…
LINK - Americas.irc-online.org
May 22, 2008
Enforcement on Steroids: Homeland Security’s Emerging Immigration Police State
…The United States holds around 350 detainees in its "legal black hole" in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and people around the world are rightly appalled by the lack of due process afforded them. Three times that many people, picked up within the United States, have been ordered deported but can't be returned to their country and are now facing the prospect of "indefinite detention" — they could potentially die in prison if the Bush administration and its allies have their way. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the government didn't have the authority to detain immigrants forever, but Homeland Security has resisted the order.
In addition to its own detention facilities — they're not called "jails" because those being held include many who aren't charged with a crime — ICE leases thousands of beds in 312 county and city prisons, where a majority of immigrant detainees are held.
These include dozens of private, for-profit prison facilities. The immigration detention system has proven a cash cow for companies like Halliburton, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group. "Housing federal detainees typically brings in more per 'man-day,' an industry term for what is earned per detainee," than they can get from state prison systems," wrote Leslie Berestein in the San Diego Union-Tribune…
LINK - Alternet.org
May 21, 2008
Holding Hutto’s feet to the fire
When a coalition of community activists gathers in Taylor, Texas, this weekend, they'll trot alongside a barbed-wire fence (we're told the inner barricades have come down) and descend upon the controversial T. Don Hutto Residential Center, where a teddy bear has been placed on every bed and children's artwork lines the halls.
As they inch the bullhorns and signs reading "Texas shame" and "Children need sunshine too" closer to the center, the PR-scrubbed scene will be marred by something the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Corrections Corporation of America, and Williamson County doesn't want: hundreds of protesters shouting for the release of immigrant children and undocumented detainees.
The center — an immigrant-detention facility funded by Homeland Security, operated by privately owned CCA, and administered by the county — made news when it was criticized for incarcerating detainees in conditions that, until recently, were abysmal. The 470-bed detention center is one of two in the country that confine families on immigration violations while they await disposition of their cases…
LINK - SACurrent.com (San Antonio Current)
May 20, 2008
Corrections Corporation of America Announces Contract Award From the Office of Federal Detention Tru
NASHVILLE, TN, May 19, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) —-Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE: CXW: 25.55, -0.06, -0.23%), the nation's largest provider of corrections management services to government agencies, announced today that it has been awarded a contract by the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee (OFDT) to design, build and operate a new correctional facility located in Pahrump, Nevada, approximately 65 miles outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. CCA's new 1,072-bed Nevada Southern Detention Center is expected to house approximately 1,000 federal inmates and detainees from the United States Marshals Service as well as potential populations from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Prisons…
Now we know why CCA is pulling out of it's State and County contracts… their Federal contracts seem to pay off better - and getting a "friend" on the inside [more: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] doesn't hurt either…
May 15, 2008
Immigrant crackdown creates need for more detention beds
AURORA, Colo. (Map, News) - A privately run immigrant detention center in suburban Denver that serves several Western states is looking to expand - anticipating a greater demand for beds as the federal government cracks down on illegal immigration amid concerns that local jails can't handle the burden.
The GEO Group wants to invest $72 million to expand its Aurora detention center from 400 beds to 1,500, even without a new operating contract from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
GEO stated in October it was expanding to meet federal agencies' need for detention space. At 90 percent capacity, GEO estimates the Aurora center - which houses undocumented immigrants from Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming - would generate about $30 million annually in operating revenue…
LINK - Examiner.com
May 4, 2008
Detention Dollars: Tougher immigration laws turn the ailing private prison sector into a revenue mak
At the beginning of the decade, the private prison industry was in a tailspin. After several profitable years in the 1990s, companies contracting prison beds to public corrections agencies were losing revenue at an alarming rate.
Capital earned during the 1990s had been poured into a speculative prison-building boom that backfired. State corrections agencies, a mainstay of what was then a relatively new industry, had begun pulling inmates out. There were too many prison beds and too few prisoners.
[…]
Then, in early 2000, CCA announced a lucrative new contract. The Immigration and Naturalization Service was to house 1,000 detainees at the company's San Diego Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, built as part of the late-1990s construction boom. The agency agreed to pay a per diem fee of $89.50 for every person held…
LINK - SignOnSanDiego.com (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
May 4, 2008
Lawsuits raise questions about private prisons
As immigration laws have become tougher, the federal government has found itself with a logistical challenge: where to house a population that has swollen to more than 30,000 detainees. The solution? Turn them over to the private sector.
Detention contracts have helped turn once-ailing private prison companies into a multibillion-dollar growth industry with record revenues, healthy stock prices and ambitious expansion plans.
One of them, Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, has applied to build a nearly 3,000-bed prison in Otay Mesa, where it now runs a facility holding up to 700 detainees awaiting deportation or decisions on their immigration cases. The company is the nation's largest private prison operator…
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
May 1, 2008
GEO Group Detention center neighbor protests expansion plan
A Florida-based property owner has stalled the $72 million expansion of a privately run detention center with a written appeal.
Anthony Paradiso, who owns a 10,000-square-foot building at 1010 Oakland St. in Aurora, sent a letter to the city's planning department protesting the recent decision to allow the extension of the current GEO Group detention facility by about 68,500 square feet and 1,100 in added capacity.
Paradiso, citing the negative impacts of such an expansion on local businesses and pointing to the lack of a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the expansion, formally protested the April 10 decision of the Planning Commission to approve GEO's plans in his letter dated April 18…
LINK - AuroraSentinel.com (The Aurora Sentinel)
May 1, 2008
Immigrants Challenge U.S. System of Detention
Immigrants who spent time in detention while fighting deportation filed a federal suit on Wednesday against Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, demanding that the agency issue legally enforceable regulations for its detention centers.
No enforceable standards now exist for the immigrant detention system, a rapidly growing conglomeration of county jails, federal centers and privately run prisons across the country.
The lawsuit, filed by the immigrants and their advocates in United States District Court in Manhattan, contends that the lack of such regulations puts hundreds of thousands of people a year in substandard and inconsistent conditions while the government decides whether to deport them, leaving them subject to inadequate medical care and abuse…
LINK - NYTimes.com (The New York Times)
April 30, 2008
Put for-profit detention centers on ICE (Opinion)
In 2007, the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) rounded up more than 30,000 immigrants in raids. While more than 186,000 immigrants were deported in 2006, an alarming 300,000 were detained in immigrant detention centers, such as the T. Don Hutto Center in Taylor, in 2007 alone. According to ICE, the purpose of immigrant detention centers is to "detain and remove criminal and other deportable aliens … in part of the strategy to deter illegal immigration and protect public safety."
Despite what ICE ostensibly promotes, these for-profit detention centers are not achieving their intended goals, as they do not create a disincentive for coming to the U.S. The risk of crossing over illegally is a small price to pay for the safety and high labor demand on the other side of the border. Additionally, undocumented immigrants are often hesitant to report crimes to authorities due to the fear of being detained, in which case detention centers may be hindering communities more than helping them.
Privatized detention centers are going up all over the United States as a way to deal with the growing number of undocumented immigrants. As a result, not only are we detaining immigrants in our country, but because of the move toward privatization, these facilities are able to make a profit from these prisoners. The industry leader, Corrections Corporation of America, has seen its stock price rise to as much as $22 a share, and in 2006 its revenue was $1.3 billion with profits of $105 million. According to industry experts, in order to make a profit these companies not only need to ensure that more prisons are built, but also need to keep them filled to an estimated 90-to 95-percent capacity rate. These for-profit detention centers demand immigrants' bodies and labor, and it is disturbing to think about how this demand will be met…
LINK - DailyTexanOnline.com (The Daily Texan - Online)
April 26, 2008
Hundreds riot at L.A. detention center for illegal immigrants
Los Angeles County sheriff's officials are investigating a riot that broke out Tuesday involving hundreds of immigration detainees at a county-run facility in Lancaster, where guards had to use tear gas grenades to restore order, authorities said today.
The Sheriff's Department contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to house about 900 detainees awaiting deportation at the Mira Loma Detention Center, according to sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.
Sheriff's and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel spent much of the night interviewing detainee witnesses, and some who instigated the riot may be prosecuted on criminal charges, authorities said…
LINK - LATimes.com (Los Angeles Times)
April 11, 2008
Authorities investigate reports of missing property at privately run immigration detention center
Authorities are investigating allegations of missing property from illegal immigrants held at the country's largest immigrant detention center here, officials said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials refused to comment on those allegations nor would they comment on a report that a government-issued gun also was missing at the detention center.
[…]
Carl Stuart, a spokesman for Management and Training Corp., the Utah-based company that runs the 3,000-bed detention center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, acknowledged that there's an "ongoing investigation." But ICE would not comment on whether anything or anyone is being investigated at the detention center.
April 10, 2008
GEO Group gets go-ahead on expansion plans in Aurora, Colorado
"Detention is an inhumane way to deal with a broken immigration system," said Miriam Pena, director of growth for the Colorado Progressive Coalition. "Detention is not cost effective … GEO is expecting to earn $30 million."
The Rev. Patrick Demmer of the Graham Memorial Community Church of God and Christ in Denver also addressed the crowd of protesters, questioning the underlying motives of the GEO Group corporation.
"There is something morally wrong about the privatization of prisons and detention centers … Courts and prisons cannot and should not be produced sufficiently by the private sector," Demmer said. "The very reputation of this company is very suspect … How did Aurora get involved with such a company in the first place?"…
LINK - AuroraSentinel.com (Aurora, Colorado)
February 25, 2008
Complaints filed against CCA-run San Diego private prison
A privately run immigration jail in Otay Mesa that is already the subject of two lawsuits is under fire again for allegedly mistreating female detainees, then retaliating when they complained to lawyers. One of the women has filed a formal complaint with the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, saying she suffered verbal and physical abuse and poor medical care during her three-week detention this month.
The allegations come about one year after a federal lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in San Diego alleging severe overcrowding and unsafe conditions at the jail, known as the San Diego Correctional Facility…
LINK - SignonSanDiego.com (San Diego Union-Tribune)
January 30, 2008
Immigrant Holding Center to Add 250 Women
The detention center has faced heavy criticism by protesters for what they call the wrongful imprisonment of children. It has also caused liability concerns for the county, after a guard was fired after he was accused of sexually assaulting a female detainee in May. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the incident but said they found no criminal activity and closed the investigation in June. County commissioners debated whether to keep their contract with the federal government and Corrections Corp. of America, the private company that owns and operates the facility. The contract expires Jan. 31, 2009…
LINK - Chron.com
December 27, 2007
Documentary condemns Nashville’s Corrections Corporation of America for role in “largest trend of fa
In an era of family-dividing deportations, the immigration arm of the U.S. government has arranged for Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America ("CCA") to house immigrant families together, but where and how the families are placed has been framed by some as a moral and human rights crisis…
LINK - HispanicNashville.com
November 18, 2007
Privatization Updated (November 18, 2007)
An update on the true "cost" of private prisons in the United States.
California Privatization
Nov. 17 - A guard at the Leo Chesney Community Correctional Facility for women in Live Oak was arrested on suspicion of having sex with an inmate. Mark Steven Susoeff, 45, was arrested after an investigation by the Internal Affairs Division of the CDCR. The minimum security facility is owned and operated by Cornell but overseen by the state. Susoeff allegedly had sex with the inmate on two occasions, once in January and once in March. The state began to investigate after the inmate reported the incident. Susoeff was placed on administrative leave.
Corrections Corporation of America
Nov. 16 - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say an 8-year-old girl was separated from her pregnant mother and left behind for four days at a detention center set up to hold immigrant families together while they await outcomes to their cases. Officials say they had to transfer the Honduran woman because she twice resisted attempts to deport her and was potentially disruptive. ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said guards and ICE staff watched the child after her mother was removed from the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility. But others are critical of the agency's handling of the case, saying it put the child at risk and is another example of why the facility should be closed. Since opening last year, the Hutto facility has been exempt from state child-care licensing requirements. ICE officials told the state Texas Department of Family and Protective Services that parents would be at the facility with their children and would be responsible for their care, so state regulation wasn't needed.
The GEO Group
Nov. 16 - A former guard at the Val Verde Correctional Facility was arrested after he was indicted for violating the civil rights of an inmate in October 2006. Emmanuel Cassio is alleged to have walked into a cell and "struck the inmate with his fist." The inmate then made a derogatory remark to Cassiom who is then alleged to have punched the inmate a second time. If found guilty of the offense, Cassio faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison, a fine not to exceed $250,000 and three years' supervised release.
Management and Training Corp.
Nov. 14 - In Willacy County, Texas, two detention center sergeants Juan Trevino and Albert Vasquez were arrested and charged with conspiring to transport undocumented immigrants between Sept. 1 and Nov. 8, 2007. Detention center officers Carlos Garcia, 36 and Ben Sanchez, 36 were also arrested and charged with attempting to drive 28 undocumented immigrants into the United States. Trevino and Sanchez are charged separately in a criminal complaint. Their arrests were the result of an investigation by special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The four men worked as detention officers for Management and Training Corp. which provides security services for the Willacy County Detention Center. Officials allege that Trevino recruited Vasquez, Garcia and Sanchez to pick up and transport immigrants who were smuggled into the country through locations using MTC company vehicles. Garcia and Sanchez were wearing MTC uniforms and officials found a loaded .357 magnum pistol in the center console of the van when they attempted to drive the MTC F-450 van past a checkpoint. Customs and Border Protection agents at the checkpoint became suspicious because the ban was overcrowded, some passengers were sitting on the vehicle floor, none were shackled and many had luggage.
