Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to spend as much as $45 billion on private prisons and related infrastructure over the next two years. President Trump wants to deport as many as 1 million immigrants this year. But the infrastructure to deport that many people that quickly doesn’t exist yet, so he’s counting on private companies to pick up the slack.
Border czar Tom Homan says he wants 100,000 detention beds, while the immigration detention system currently has capacity for 40,000-50,000, according to Allison McCann, immigration reporter for the New York Times.
About 90% of all detention beds nationwide are owned or operated by a private prison company, she notes. “Sometimes we'll see it's a public jail, but they've asked CoreCivic or GEO Group to come in and operate it, to do transportation, meals, detainee outfits, and to be the operator of their facility too.”
CoreCivic and GEO Group, the two largest private prison companies, have been around since the 1980s. “Around the mid-90s, when Congress passed a big immigration bill … which required some mandatory detention, I think both of these companies saw a huge opportunity to get into the private detention space, particularly for ICE.”
As for the $45 billion sum, that doesn’t exist yet, McCann clarifies, and it’s not expected that one company will receive a deal worth that much money. She says in April, the Dept. of Homeland Security asked contractors what new facilities, transportation, security guards, and medical support they have. “And they can build this Rolodex. So ‘Hey, we have 2000 beds in California. We have 1000 in Louisiana.’ And then when that money comes in through these upcoming budgeting processes … ICE will be ready to quickly award contracts.”
Hitting the 100,000 bed mark is uncertain, McCann reports, but CoreCivic says they have around 20,000, and GEO has another 20,000 that they could get up and running within the year.
Right now, ICE’s budget is $9 billion/year, and about one-third goes to detention infrastructure, she says. So reaching $45 billion means a fivefold increase. The funds would be spent on maintaining existing infrastructure, housing/feeding/clothing detainees, and paying medical staff, she explains.
However, GEO Group has faced lawsuits in California, Colorado, and Washington state for underpaying detainees who clean the facilities, McCann notes.
What are the living conditions inside these centers? “Members of Congress this year have been denied access to facilities even in their jurisdictions. So what we do know is what detainees tell us, it's what inspections turn up. There have been, for years now, evidence of neglect at many facilities … particularly around a lack of access to medical care and unsanitary conditions. And … this year in particular, we're hearing lots of reports of overcrowding.”
Another issue is the revolving door between the private prison industry and ICE. “We found several longtime ICE officials who, after many years of overseeing the government contracts that are awarded to these companies, then go and take a job working for them. Some people told us that this relationship … discourages any scrutiny of these companies. It keeps them in favor.”
It’s also a potential conflict, she adds, that ICE awards contracts to these private companies and oversees inspections and audits there too.