Huge Public Costs for Criminal Mass Deportations While Private Prison Companies Benefit
Organizations across the United States are expressing their outrage at the human cost of mass deportations, for the individuals, families and communities involved, and the massive public funds required. The private prison companies are crowing about their "unprecedented opportunity" to grab up guaranteed government funding to build and manage the big increased need for detention camps.
The two main private prison corporations, GEO Group and CoreCivic, are already benefiting from government plans for mass deportation of an estimated 13 million people. The process for many of the workers facing possible deportation will be first detention and then deportation. It is also likely many will be indefinitely detained and held for use as enslaved labour, in the detention camps, in agriculture, various state-related work like laundry, license plates, etc. – much like the enslaved labour of prisoners.
Many of these camps are already run by the two private companies. With Trump's election, GEO Group's stock surged more than 56 per cent from the close of trading on Election Day, to the closing bell on Friday, November 8. CoreCivic's shares skyrocketed 57 per cent over the same period. By contrast, in the three months preceding Election Day, GEO Group stock saw a 21 per cent rise. CoreCivic stock rose 11 per cent over the same period.
The federal government works with county jails and contracts with the private sector, mainly these two companies, to build, operate and manage the majority of detention facilities. Only a small number of detention beds are in federally owned facilities.
Currently Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains more than 36,600 people in a network of more than 200 immigration detention camps across the country. This year, Biden signed a federal spending bill that increases funding for ICE to maintain an average daily population of 41,500 people in detention which provides the highest level of funding for custody and surveillance operations in ICE's history. Clearly, when talking about detaining and deporting millions of people, these detention facilities must greatly expand. There is also talk about using currently empty military bases as well as expanding the existing Guantánamo detention camp.
Map of current immigration detention centres and public/private ownership.
It has been well-documented, including by Congressional investigations, that conditions in the existing camps are more like concentration camps. There are widespread abuses from torture and medical neglect, including deaths, forced sterilization and rape, sexual assault of children, malnourishment and more.
The total cost for even one million deportations will be staggering. According to ICE, in 2016, the average cost of apprehending, detaining, processing and removing one undocumented immigrant from the United States was $10,900. Given inflation and costs for expanding the detention camps, staffing them, increased ICE staffing and more, it is estimated that removal of one million people each year for 10 years would cost about $1 trillion.
Such criminal attacks on workers and their families, and criminal use of public funds, are widely denounced with many raising the demand to close all detention camps, stop funding war and detention and fund the rights of the peoples!
This article was published in
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/ITN2024/Articles/TI54502.HTM
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