This
seems to be written without irony. Incarcerating people is good for
the economy.
IMMIGRANTS
PROVE BIG BUSINESS FOR PRISON COMPANIES
Locking
up illegal immigrants has grown profoundly lucrative for the private
prisons industry, a reliable pot of revenue that helped keep some of
the biggest companies in business.
AP,
2
August, 2012
And
while nearly half of the 400,000 immigrants held annually are housed
in private facilities, the federal government - which spends $2
billion a year on keeping those people in custody - says it isn't
necessarily cheaper to outsource the work, a central argument used
for privatization in the first place.
The
Associated Press, seeking to tally the scope of the private
facilities, add up their cost and the amounts the companies spend on
lobbying and campaign donations, reviewed more than 10 years' worth
of federal and state records. It found a complex, mutually beneficial
and evidently legal relationship between those who make corrections
and immigration policy and a few prison companies. Some of those
companies were struggling to survive before toughened immigrant
detention laws took effect.
A
decade ago, just 10 percent of the beds in the nation's civil
detention system were in private facilities with little federal
oversight. Now, about half the beds are part of a sprawling, private
system, largely controlled by just three companies: Corrections
Corporation of America, The GEO Group, and Management and Training
Corp.
And
the growth is far from over, despite the sheer drop in illegal
immigration in recent years.
CCA
was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2000 due to lawsuits, management
problems and dwindling contracts. Last year, the company reaped $162
million in net income. Federal contracts made up 43 percent of its
total revenues, in part thanks to rising immigrant detention.
GEO,
which cites the immigration agency as its largest client, saw its net
income jump from $16.9 million to $78.6 million since 2000.
At
the same time, the three businesses have spent at least $45 million
combined on campaign donations and lobbyists at the state and federal
level in the last decade, the AP found.
This
seismic shift toward a privatized system happened quietly. While
Congress' unsuccessful efforts to overhaul immigration laws drew
headlines and sparked massive demonstrations, lawmakers' negotiations
to boost detention dollars received far less attention.
CCA
and GEO, who manage most private detention centers, insist they
aren't trying to influence immigration policy to make more money, and
their lobbying and campaign donations have been legal.
"As
a matter of long-standing corporate policy, CCA does not lobby on
issues that would determine the basis for an individual's detention
or incarceration," CCA spokesman Steve Owen said in an email to
the AP. The company has a website dedicated to debunking such
allegations.
GEO,
which was part of The Wackenhut Corp. security firm until 2003, and
Management and Training declined repeated interview requests.
Advocates
for immigrants are skeptical the lobbying is not meant to influence
policy.
"That's
a lot of money to listen quietly," said Peter
Cervantes-Gautschi, who has helped lead a campaign to encourage large
banks and mutual funds to divest from the prison companies.
The
detention centers are located in cities and remote areas alike, from
a Denver suburb to an industrial area flanking Newark's airport,
often in low-slung buildings surrounded by chain-link fences and
razor wire. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents detain
men, women and children suspected of violating civil immigration laws
at these facilities. Most of those held at the 250 sites nationwide
are illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, but some green card
holders, asylum seekers and others are also there.
The
total average nightly cost to taxpayers to detain an illegal
immigrant, including health care and guards' salaries, is about $166,
ICE confirmed only after the AP calculated that figure and presented
it to the agency.
That's
up from $80 in 2004. ICE said the $80 didn't include all of the same
costs but declined to provide details.
Pedro
Guzman is among those who have passed through the private detention
centers. He was brought to the U.S. by his Guatemalan mother at age
8. He was working and living here legally under temporary protected
status but was detained after missing an appearance for an asylum
application. Officials ordered him deported.
Although
he was married to a U.S. citizen, ICE considered him a flight risk
and locked him up in 2009: first at a private detention facility run
by CCA in Gainesville, Ga., and eventually at CCA's Stewart Detention
Center, south of Atlanta. Guzman spent 19 months in Stewart until he
was finally granted legal permanent residency.
"It's
a millionaire's business, and they are living off profits from each
one of the people who go through there every single night," said
Guzman, now a cable installer in Durham, N.C. "It's our money
that we earn as taxpayers every day that goes to finance this."
The
federal government stepped up detentions of illegal immigrants in the
1990s, as the number of people crossing the border soared. In 1996,
Congress passed a law requiring many more illegal immigrants be
locked up. But it wasn't until 2005 - as the corrections companies'
lobbying efforts reached their zenith - that ICE got a major boost.
Between 2005 and 2007, the agency's budget jumped from $3.5 billion
to $4.7 billion, adding more than $5 million for custody operations.
Dora
Schriro, who in 2009 reviewed the nation's detention system at the
request of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said nearly
every aspect had been outsourced.
"ICE
was always relying on others for responsibilities that are
fundamentally those of the government," said Schriro, now the
New York City Correction Commissioner. "If you don't have the
competency to know what is a fair price to ask and negotiate the most
favorable rates for the best service, then the likelihood that you
are going to overspend is greater."
Private
companies argue they can save Americans money by running the centers
more cheaply.
Pablo
Paez, a spokesman for Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO, said in an email
his company supports public-private partnerships which "have
been demonstrated to achieve significant cost savings for the
taxpayers." He declined to answer specific questions.
But
ICE Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal
Operations Gary Mead said the government has never studied whether
privatizing immigrant detention saves money.
"They
are not our most expensive, they are not our cheapest"
facilities, he said. "At some point cost cannot be the only
factor."
One
fundamental difference between private detention facilities and their
publicly-run counterparts is transparency. The private ones don't
have to follow the same public records and access requirements.
President
Barack Obama has asked for less detention money this year and
encouraged the agency to look at alternatives to locking people up.
He also ordered DHS to stop deporting young immigrants brought to the
U.S. illegally, which could reduce the number behind bars. Congress,
however, can approve more detention spending than DHS requests.
Beyond
civil detention centers, private companies are also making more money
locking up non-citizens who commit federal crimes.
To
deter illegal border crossers, federal prosecutors are increasingly
charging immigrants with felonies for repeatedly entering the country
without papers. That has led thousands of people convicted of illegal
re-entry, as well as more serious federal offenses, to serve time in
private prisons built just for them.
A
decade ago, more than 3,300 criminal immigrants were sent to private
prisons under two 10-year contracts the Federal Bureau of Prisons
signed with CCA worth $760 million. Now, the agency is paying the
private companies $5.1 billion to hold more than 23,000 criminal
immigrants through 13 contracts of varying lengths.
CCA
was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2000 due to lawsuits, management
problems and dwindling contracts. Last year, the company reaped $162
million in net income. Federal contracts made up 43 percent of its
total revenues, in part thanks to rising immigrant detention.
GEO,
which cites the immigration agency as its largest client, saw its net
income jump from $16.9 million to $78.6 million since 2000.
"Another
factor driving growth ... for the private sector is in the area of
immigration and illegal immigration specifically," Chief
Financial Officer Brian Evans told investors in GEO's 2011 3rd
quarter earnings call.
CCA
warned in its 2011 annual earnings report that federal policy changes
in "illegal immigration could affect the number of persons
arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing
demand for correctional facilities to house them."
Utah-based
Management and Training is not publicly held, so it does not post
earnings.
At
just the federal level, these companies, their political action
committees and their employees have spent more than $32 million on
lobbying and on campaign contributions since 2000 - with the national
political parties getting the largest campaign contributions.
An
AP review of Federal Election Commission data found the prison
companies and their employees gave to key congressional leaders who
control how much money goes to run the nation's detention centers and
who influence how many contracts go to the private sector.
James
Thurber, head of American University's Center for Congressional &
Presidential Studies, said amid the heated national debate over
immigration, the companies have been savvy not to donate heavily to
those sponsoring legislation, which could spark backlash, or to lobby
directly for tougher laws.
"It's
too controversial," he said. "But support for privatization
doesn't get as political. And it can be done discretely."
There
are more discrete and more powerful ways to influence policy, Thurber
said.
"Follow
the money," he said. "If the money is being increased
significantly for illegal immigration, then that is a shift in policy
... a significant shift."
The
top beneficiaries of the campaign contributions include:
-
The Republican Party. Its national and congressional committees
received around $450,000. Democrats received less than half that.
-
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain. He received $71,000, mostly
during his failed presidential bid against Obama, well after he
dropped support for a bill that would have given illegal immigrants a
path to citizenship and reduced detentions.
-
House Speaker John Boehner received $63,000.
-Kentucky
U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers received about $59,000. Rogers chaired the first
subcommittee on Homeland Security and heads the powerful House
Appropriations Committee. He often criticizes ICE for not filling
more detention beds.
-
Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He received $58,500.
The lawmaker from Tennessee, where CCA is headquartered, led the
Senate at the height of the nation's immigrant detention build up
from 2003 to 2007.
More
than campaign contributions, though, the private prison companies
spent most of their money each year on lobbying in Washington,
peaking in 2005 when they spent $5 million.
In
just 2011, CCA paid the Washington firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &
Feld $280,000 in part to "monitor immigration reform,"
federal reports show.
They
also lobbied heavily against a bill that would force them to comply
with the same open records requirements governing public facilities.
Owen,
the CCA spokesman, said the company ramped up lobbying to acquaint
new lawmakers with the industry.
"In
recent years, federal elections have been very volatile, resulting in
a lot of new faces in Washington," he said. "The result of
that volatility means a lot of people at the federal level who may
not be familiar with the work we do."
The
prison companies' influence at the state level mirrors that in
Washington, although the money is even harder to track since many
states, such as Arizona and Illinois, where the companies have won
lucrative detention contracts, don't require corporations to disclose
what they pay lobbyists.
The
AP reviewed campaign contribution data from the three companies'
political action committees and their employees over the last decade,
compiled by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. From
2003 to the first half of 2012, state candidates and political
parties in the 50 states received more than $5.32 million.
In
the 10 states where the companies' committees and employees
contributed the most, the AP found they also spent at least $8
million more lobbying local officials in the last five years alone.
It is impossible to know how much of this lobbying money was aimed
only at immigrant-related contracts. But that money generally went to
states along the border, such as Florida and Texas, which have high
numbers of immigrants, as well as states such as Georgia and
Louisiana, where large numbers of immigrants also are detained.
ICE
has begun providing more oversight as part of the Obama
administration's pledge to overhaul the nation's system for jailing
immigration offenders. It recently scrapped plans for CCA to build a
1,500-bed immigrant detention center in a high-end Miami suburb
following months of local protests, and is also looking for a new
home for a detention facility once slated for the suburbs of Chicago,
after local officials voted in June to block the project from going
forward.
But
it remains committed to adding more private beds. Plans are on track
to build or expand private immigration jails in Newark, N.J., and
along a lonely stretch of California's Mojave Desert.
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