Feds review for-profit detention center use
Study to evaluate whether to end private facilities
Private prisons are on the way out, and privately run immigration-detention centers could be next.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has ordered a Department of Homeland Security advisory committee to evaluate whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement should end its use of private for-profit companies to operate detention centers that hold immigrants. He wants the review done by Nov. 30. The announcement comes less than two weeks after the Department of Justice announced it had directed the Bureau of Prisons to phase out the use of privately run for-profit prisons. The decision cited an inspector general’s report that concluded private prisons are not as safe or effective as government-run prisons.
Immigration-rights advocates told The Arizona Republic following the Justice Department’s announcement that DHS should do the same with for-profit
detention centers.
On Monday, many of those advocates hailed Johnson’s announcement.
They contend the use of for-profit companies to run immigration-detention centers has fueled a trend to hold more people rather than use less expensive alternatives to detention and has led to a host of problems at the facilities, including inadequate medical care they say has contributed to numerous deaths.
“It’s a welcome sign that detention centers are too being looked at,” said Carlos Garcia, executive director of Puente Arizona, which advocates for the release of immigrants held in detention. “From what we know, the same horrible conditions at federal prisons are happening in detention centers.”
The group has been critical of the 1,550-bed Eloy Detention Center, located about 60 miles south of Phoenix, considered the deadliest in the nation.
According to a Republic investigation, there have been 14 deaths at the Eloy Detention Center since 2003, including five suicides.
The center is run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest private-prison contractors in the country, under contract with ICE.
There have been at least 32 deaths at CCA-operated facilities nationwide over the 11-year period from 2004 to June 2015, according to data collected by Prison Legal News.
Cristina Parker, immigration-programs director at Grassroots Leadership in Austin, Texas, said she hopes the Department of Homeland Security’s review of private, for-profit immigrationdetention centers concludes with the closing of all private, for-profit immigration-detention centers.
“I am glad they are reviewing, but ultimately an honest and correct outcome of that review is to decide to stop using private prisons,” she said. “After all, the DOJ decided they did not want to use these companies for private prisons and they are the exact same companies involved in immigrant detention.”
U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., last week called on DHS to stop using private, forprofit companies to house immigration detainees.
The two lawmakers instead called on DHS to use community-based alternatives that they said are more cost-effective while ensuring immigrants show up for immigration hearings.
They said immigrants in alternatives to detention appear in court 99 percent of the time and comply with removal 84 percent of the time. Increasing the use of such options could save the federal government more than $1.4 billion a year, they said.
Jonathan Burns, a spokesman for Corrections Corporation of America, said in a statement that the company welcomes the review. The company has contracted with the federal government to “provide solutions to pressing immigration challenges for more than 30 years.”
“This effort builds on the unfettered, daily, onsite access ICE officials have to our facilities and the thousands of government audits we’re subject to each year. We’re proud of the quality and value of the services we provide and look forward to sharing that information with” the advisory committee, the statement said.
Johnson said he wants a DHS advisory committee to review current policy and practices concerning the use of private immigration detention and to evaluate whether “this practice should be eliminated.”
The review should consider all factors, Johnson said in a statement, including fiscal considerations.
Should DHS decide to end the use of privately run immigration-detention centers, the impact could be much greater than on privately run prisons.
There are 41 privately run immigration-detention centers that contract with ICE to hold immigrants awaiting deportation or the outcome of immigration hearings.
Among the 41 are four in Arizona, including the Eloy Detention Center, the third largest in the nation.
The privately run detention centers house 62 percent of the approximately 34,000 immigration beds maintained daily by ICE through a vast network of centers that each year hold more than 300,000 immigrants, according to a 2015 report by Grassroots Leadership, a nonprofit group that opposes private prisons.
By comparison, the Department of Justice’s decision applies only to 13 private prisons operated under contract with the Bureau of Prisons. They hold about 22,000 inmates, who represent about 11 percent of the total federal prison population, according to the Justice Department.
“From what we know, the same horrible conditions at federal prisons are happening in detention centers.”
CARLOS GARCIA
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF PUENTE ARIZONA