Private prisons boost lobbying

CQ-Roll Call

WASHINGTON—One of the country’s largest private prison companies is spending record amounts on lobbying amid efforts by the Trump administration to detain more undocumented immigrants, federal records show.

The GEO Group, which has contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Bureau of Prisons and the Marshals Service, has spent nearly $1.3 million on lobbying from Jan. 1 through Sept. 30, according to new lobbying records filed with Congress. That tops $1 million spent last year. The company spent at least $400,000 on seven lobbying businesses in the third quarter alone, the disclosures show.

GEO’s increased spending comes as ICE is seeking proposals for five new immigrant detention facilities and the Homeland Security Department is asking Congress to fund more than 51,000 beds, up from the current 34,000. ICE is the Florida-based prison company’s biggest customer, according to its 2016 annual report.

Pablo Paez, the GEO Group’s vice president for corporate relations, said the company’s lobbying practices “have always been and continue to be focused on promoting the benefits of public-private partnerships in the delivery of secure residential care in correctional and detention facilities.”

“We do not take a position on, nor advocate for or against, criminal justice or immigration policies such as whether to criminalize behavior, the length of criminal sentences, or the basis for or length of an individual’s incarceration or detention,” Paez said in an emailed statement.

GEO and its leading competitor, CoreCivic—formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America—stand to gain considerably from President Donald Trump’s hawkish immigration policies. Trump wants to deport as many as 3 million undocumented immigrants who commit crimes, and said during the presidential campaign that private prisons “seem to work a lot better” than those operated by the federal government.

Both companies lobbied House members and senators on fiscal 2018 appropriations for the Homeland Security Department and Justice Departments, disclosures show.

CoreCivic spent $220,000 on lobbying in the third quarter, bringing its year-to-date total to $640,000. The Tennesseebased company spent about $1.1 million on lobbying in 2016, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. A CoreCivic representative did not respond to a request for comment.