Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Panel: Private jails for ICE detainees working
WASHINGTON — Immigration authorities should continue holding people accused of immigration violations in for-profit prisons despite complaints about safety and other problems, a Department of Homeland Security review panel has concluded after examining the issue.
Privately run detention facilities have long attracted criticism from immigration advocates and human rights groups for poor conditions and inadequate medical care.
But in a 23-page report released Thursday, the panel said eliminating them would cost too much and make it harder for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to cope with sudden surges in the detainee population.
“Use of these facilities will continue,” Karen Tandy, who led the panel that conducted the twomonth review, told the Homeland Security Advisory Council. “We’ve seen dramatic surges in detention.”
Using a mix of private and public facilities to house detainees now costs $3 billion per year. Using only government-run prisons would cost up to $6 billion, the panel found.
But Marshall Fitz, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress that helped draft the report, wrote a dissent saying evidence “points directly toward the inferiority of the private prison model.”
“This is a premature conclusion,” Fitz said of the panel’s endorsement of private prisons. “I couldn’t in good conscience sign onto that.”
The report passed the advisory council although 17 of the 23 members signed on to Fitz’s dissent. Only five voted to pass the report as written. One voted against approval.
The debate played out in front of Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, who attended the meeting and said he would read the report.
In a statement, ICE spokeswoman Danielle Bennett said the agency “will review and consider the council’s recommendations and will implement any changes, as appropriate.”
The report is good news for the firms that operate immigration detention centers, which have seen their business prospects brighten as investors count on a steady flow of new detainees.
The stock price for CoreCivic, the new name for the Corrections Corp. of America, the largest private prison company in the world, has increased 67 percent since last month’s election.
The value of GEO Group stock, another private prison company with immigration detention centers, has risen 40 percent.
Both companies saw their stocks tank in August after the Department of Justice announced plans to phase out its use of private prisons.
In a statement, GEO spokesman Pablo Paez said the review “confirms our long history of providing culturally responsive, safe, and humane environments that meet the non-penal needs of those individuals entrusted to the care of ICE.”
The report was a stinging disappointment for civil rights and immigrant advocacy organizations, that were hoping Homeland Security would end contracts with private detention facilities.
They say the facilities are likely to only get more crowded once Donald Trump takes office. Trump has vowed a harsher regime of immigration enforcement.
“The big business of incarceration will only intensify under the presidentelect’s anticipated deportation regime,” Mary Small, policy director of the Detention Watch Network, said in a statement.
Advocates say the government should expand supervised release and other alternatives to detention.
“It clearly shows they acknowledge a lot of the problems yet their recommendation is to give ICE more funding,” Jacinta Gonzalez, an immigration advocate at the Not One More campaign, said of the report.