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Posts Tagged ‘migrant-prison complex’

Exposing the Business of Immigrant Detention – CCA

// September 21st, 2008 // 4467 Comments »2008-09-21+19%3A06%3A45Prerna // Immigration

I recently discovered a Reuters report featuring CCA (Corrections Corp of America)–the biggest privatized immigrant detention facility in the United States–almost gloating about the fact that these coming elections won’t make a difference to their company since there will always be a population that would need “service.” I wonder why the major newspapers and newswires in the United States missed this story–the UK Reuters link has been taken down since then but it is here for the timebeing.

“If there is any meaningful immigration (policy) change, I think there is going to be a population that is still going to have to be serviced.”

Why is the CCA so self-assured of continued business?

In the late 1990s, CCA overbuilt many detention facilities following the “if you build it, they will come” rule. According to Anton Hie, an analyst in the Nashville office of Jefferies and Co. who covered industry leader Corrections Corporation of America and its closest competitor, the GEO Group, “There was a lot of promise of new inmates that never came … It kind of all came crashing in.” States stopped contracting after high-profile escapes, riots and other scandals and subsequently, stocks came crashing down.

In 2000, the CCA had reported a net loss of $253.5 million but that is history with a 470% boom in immigrant detention over the past 15 years. CCA finally banged a lucrative deal that year–the former INS came to their rescue to house 1000 detainees at the CCA-owned San Diego Mesa Facility, and hence, saved the private detention industry from collapse, giving rise what Roberto Lovato and other prominent scholars call the migrant-prison complex. With 32,000 immigrants behind bars, some indefinitely await hearings, some commit suicide, some are dehumanized and abused, and others sedated with psychotropic drugs upon deportation, the numbers are only growing for ICE, CCA and sadly, the numbers behind bars. Today, the ICE, U.S. Marshals and Bureau of Prisons account for 40% of CCA’s revenue (13% from ICE at $1.5 billion)–which controls a little under half the private prison beds in America. Last year, the CCA reported a net profit of $133 million.

The number of jail beds funded annually in congressional appropriations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement:

FY 2001: 19,702

FY 2002: 21,109

FY 2003: 19,444

FY 2004: 19,444

FY 2005: 18,500

FY 2006: 20,800

FY 2007: 27,500

FY 2008: 32,000

(Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

For more details and background story, see the Huffington post here.

“We are doing business with 20 different states around the country. I would say it’s probably 50-50, where you’ve got half the states where the governor is a Democrat and the other half is Republican,” COO and President Damon Hininger told Reuters from Nashville, Tennessee.

“I think we have shown a good track record that we can work regardless of who is in the capital or who’s in the governor’s office within various states,” said Hininger, who began his career at Corrections Corp as a correctional officer.

With the little time I had, I did some more independent research and found out that CCA has exercised it’s ‘free speech’ rights this year by contributing $15,000 each to the Republican and Democrat Senate and Congressional races (Republicrats anyone?) for these upcoming elections as well as to several other individual races funds for a total of more than $60,000. The CEOs and managing directors have also made noteworthy contributions. The report is here – cca-contributions. Yes, Mr. Hininger, a little glance at your contributions and we know exactly what sort of ‘business’ you are doing to maintain a good track record with the different states regardless of their political leanings. (Keep in mind that this is just the CCA and other privatized prisons companies like Geo also contribute massively to skew the ‘democratic’ process in their favor).

On a related note, the artists from the Just Seeds collective have contributed about 100 murals to the upcoming Critical Resistance CR10 conference that has workshops, round-tables and panels to discuss strategies around fighting the prison-industrial complex. If you are in the Bay Area California, do check it out at Laney College this upcoming week.

Being undocumented is not a crime but when criminalizing immigrants makes $$ for corporations …

Here are some more useful resources on this:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dw5vh94_498fcss5db

http://prernalal.com/2008/05/04/the-business-of-detention/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPcsCxV0-tc

Welcome to America – Here We Make ‘Criminals’ Out of Jet-Skiers

// September 1st, 2008 // 4278 Comments »2008-09-01+10%3A56%3A00Prerna // Immigration

This news story feeds perfectly into the socio-political construction of the migrant criminal / ‘inmate’ touched upon in the last blog post. It also shows the ludicrousness and tragicomic hilarity of our archipelagos of detention.

Two jet skiers that had an accident in Lake Ontario and were “washed UP” or even swam into the United States, were held in detention as INMATES courtesy the U.S. border patrol for two days, until the Canadian consulate and media got on the case. They are now undergoing ‘REMOVAL PROCEEDINGS” and may be barred from entrying the United States for as long as 5 years.

All Canadian jet-skiers, in the future, carry your passport in a waterproof case, in case you get washed up on the U.S. shore–the agents will throw you into immigrant detention centers–estimated at $88 per day paid for by your dear American taxpayers–after dragging you out of hospital.

Here is the article, courtesy The Toronto Star:

In hindsight, it wasn’t the best move to stop on Yankee soil and empty out a waterlogged jet ski, admitted Jason Haist, who spent two days locked in an American detention facility after washing up on the wrong side of the Niagara River.

But what choice did he have?

His cousin Edward’s Sea-Doo had flipped over in the turbulent river and had taken on water. They hauled the craft over to the American side, and spent “two seconds” emptying it with cups, he said.

“We were at the bottom of a 15-storey hill; you could not climb up there if you tried. We weren’t even docked,” said Haist. “And we really weren’t sure what side we were on.”

That stop landed the 28-year-old and his cousin, 21, in jail, said A.J. Price, an agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

They were released from a Batavia, N.Y., detention centre yesterday on a promise to appear. “It’s been pandemonium. It’s been so crazy. A simple day of Sea-Dooing, just a regular guy, turned into ‘we’re inmates,’” said Haist.

Haist and his cousin, both of Toronto, are frequent jet skiers on Lake Ontario, but not as experienced with the strong undercurrents typical of the Niagara River.

Despite the Sea-Doo flip they thought they were getting the hang of the rough waters. Around 8 p.m. Saturday, Haist was knocked off the jet ski. He doesn’t remember much. The Coast Guard pulled him out and he was taken to hospital, unconscious with lungs full of water.

“Then at 10 p.m., I’m lying in my hospital bed and Eddy calls me … He goes ‘we’re going to jail.’ I’m like, ‘what?’ I have tubes down my throat.” Discharged about 3 a.m., Haist was promptly arrested.

“We were like, totally freaking-out … Eddy’s still wearing his wet suit. There’s a cold, hard floor and one blanket,” he said. “We wouldn’t believe this was happening.”

Haist called his girlfriend. “I said, ‘you’ve got to call the radio and newspapers … They’re talking about holding us here for months.’”

By yesterday morning, officials had changed their tune.

“They kind of just said to me, ‘today the media’s all involved in this.’ We got the Canadian consulate people calling, get your stuff and get out of here,” said Haist, who returned home. Price says the men never “washed up” on U.S. soil.

“That’s a big misconception. They swam to shore, and that was after the accident,” the agent said. “And that is not the only landfall (coming ashore on the American side) they made that day and that is why they’re in removal proceedings.”

It may be more than two weeks before the Haists see a judge and plead their case. They could be barred from entering the United States for as long as five years.

I don’t think any Canadian would be doing a “Michael Phelps” without ‘documentation’ anytime soon, accident or no accident. This is almost right up there with jailing hurricane / cyclone evacuees!

Undocumented Immigrants and Crime – Dispelling Myths

// June 26th, 2008 // 2251 Comment »2008-06-26+16%3A38%3A57Prerna // Immigration

Kyle asked via email whether there are any studies which show that undocumented immigrants commit less crimes than American citizens. The one study we should be familiar with is the one from IPC last year, which is here. This was the summary of their research:

At the same time that immigration—especially undocumented immigration—has reached or surpassed historic highs, crime rates have declined, notably in cities with large numbers of undocumented immigrants, including border cities like El Paso and San Diego.

Incarceration rate for native-born men in the 18-39 age group was five times higher than for foreign-born men in the same age group.

Data from the census and other sources show that for every ethnic group, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are least educated and least acculturated.

There is also one from this year (2008) -
Immigrants and Crime: Setting the Record Straight <http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/index.php?content=fc080313a> (Immigration Policy Center – March 2008) – Dispels myths about immigrants and criminality.

Washington-based nonprofit Immigration Policy Center, found that on the national level, U.S.-born men ages 18-39 are five times more likely to be incarcerated than are their foreign-born peers. And, while the number of illegal immigrants in the country doubled between 1994 and 2005, violent crime declined by nearly 35% and property crimes by 26% over the same period.

One 2005 study conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Michigan found that immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens.

Another study, which examined data from the U.S. Census Bureau, found that among men aged 18 to 39, the incarceration rate for native-born citizens is five times higher than for the foreign-born individuals. This held true within ethnic and national-origin groups; native-born Latinos, for example, were more likely to be incarcerated than foreign-born Latinos.

A more recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California is limited to California but also focused on all immigrants. The report summary follows:

Immigrants are far less likely than the average U.S. native to commit crime in California, according to this issue of California Counts. For example, among men ages 18-40 – the age group most likely to commit crime – the U.S.-born are 10 times more likely than the foreign-born to be in jail or prison. Even among noncitizen men from Mexico ages 18-40 – a group disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally – the authors find very low rates of institutionalization. Such findings suggest that longstanding fears of immigration as a threat to public safety are unjustified.

The PPIC even determined that on average, between 2000 and 2005, cities such as Los Angeles that took in a higher share of recent immigrants saw their crime rates fall further than cities with a lower influx of illegals.

While we can win the arguments using the data sets from the studies above, the bigger problem is media and public perception of “illegal immigrant.” Usage of “illegal” as a noun functions as prima facie evidence of “criminality” for most people. We have to counter the false perception that “illegal presence” in this country is a crime–it is NOT.

Secondly, even if there are high rates of institutionalization amongst undocumented immigrants, we can turn to sociological premises and studies. A great analogy can be drawn with the case of African American males — just because they make up the majority of our prison populations, does not mean that African Americans are bound to be “criminal.” Rather, it points to the racism in our criminal justice system, socio-economic conditions such as poverty and lack of opportunity.

Similar conditions apply to Hispanic populations in prisons. Here is another great sociological paper countering the mythology of Hispanic immigration and crime. It is almost a decade old but the premises of the study still hold.

The USA also has the highest rates of incarceration in this country and with the rise of the migrant-prison complex (increased crackdowns on undocumented immigrants, detentions, border security), the focus is indeed on jailing immigrants for profit.

The following is from http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/ referring to the incarceration of undocumented immigrants:

1. The government doesn’t keep statistics on the breakdown of
documented and undocumented immigrants.

2. The 270,000 number is probably an estimate. If so, it’s probably an
estimate of the number of undocumented immigrant prisoners *during the
course of the year.* The 2.1 million figure is the prison population
on a give date, like 12/31/05. You can’t compare the two numbers.

See these links for more:

http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/2008/04/undocumented-com…

http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/2008/05/so-what-about-th…

If I find any other relevant studies, I will update this post.

More resources

The Immigration Detention Gold Mine

// May 12th, 2008 // 3125 Comments »The+Immigration+Detention+Gold+Mine2008-05-12+10%3A54%3A30DreamActivist // Human Rights, Immigration, Videos

PBS has now done a series on “Immigrant Detainees- A New Profit Center?” giving us a look into how the private corrections industry is profiting from immigrants held in detention facilities.

“Sometimes they get food…sometimes they don’t… It’s freezing in the winter time … and we have a lot of detainees that get sick.”

The Washington Post just came out with a closer look at the system of neglect that characterizes immigrant detention. You can access that here.

It costs an average of $100 per day of our tax dollars to house these immigrants—without proper food and medical facilities most of the time—behind bars, sometimes for long periods.