Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, a division of DHS, now uses detention facilities run by Corrections Corp of America and The GEO Group.
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A few weeks ago the U.S. Department of Justice announced they will end federal use of privately run prisons.
The Department of Homeland Security is reviewing whether it should keep some immigration detention facilities, such as the one in Eloy, under private operators amid pressure from activists to end the practice.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest operator of immigrant detention centers, has become notorious for allowing a series of abuses against immigrants, including holding children in prison-like facilities, allowing the sexual abuse of women, providing inadequate medical care, and allowing increased levels of violence that also contribute to high suicide rates.
“It’s past time that DHS end the practice of detaining immigrants and this review should move it in that direction”, said Jacinta Gonzalez, Mijente field director on behalf of the Not1More Deportation Campaign. None of the HSAC appear to be individuals who have ever been detained in private immigration detention centers themselves, which raises a question about whose interests the group represents, and whether the real stakeholders- the immigrants-will be given a seat at the table. “I asked that the Subcommittee consider all factors concerning ICE’s detention policy and practice, including fiscal considerations”.
Johnson’s statement has been welcomed by Democrats, who have always been protesting the government inking contracts with private prison companies.
He added that numerous same companies the Justice Department flagged for operating unsafe prisons also run immigrant detention centers.
In the federal system, private prisons are used by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons to house some federal convicts, the U.S. Marshals Service to temporarily jail suspects and convicts awaiting trial or sentencing and by ICE to house some immigrants.
The Department of Homeland Security is rethinking its reliance on for-profit prisons. A report released a year ago by the organization Grassroots Leadership, which opposes prison profiteering, reveals that the for-profit prison industry in 2009 successfully pressured Congress to adopt the congressional immigrant detention quota, which today directs ICE to hold an average 34,000 people in detention on a daily basis.
“We’re proud of the quality and value of the services we provide and look forward to sharing that information with Judge (William) Webster and his team”, Burns said, referring to the chairman of the council that is in charge of making recommendations to DHS.
Unlike the Department of Justice, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not maintain any of its own facilities.
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The Council will have until November 30 to determine what to do about private detention centers. The vast network of detention centers each year hold more than 300,000 immigrants, according to a 2015 report by Grassroots Leadership, a non-profit group that opposes private prisons. They hold about 22,000 inmates, who represent about 11% of the total federal prison population.
