The United States government needs to stop working hand-in-hand with the corporate sector to maximize the number of immigrants held in lockup, a 2015 report states.
The relationship “guarantees” maximized profits for the private prison companies contracted with the U.S. government, says the report by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Detention Watch Network.
“There is a growing consensus that the mass detention of immigrants is unnecessary and inhumane,” the report says. “The U.S. government should move toward ending the use of immigration detention altogether.”
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has entered into “guaranteed minimum” contracts with at least six different private detention companies, according to the report.
Former ICE Director John Sandweg said, “Having a mandate out there that says you have to detain a certain number – regardless of how many folks are a public safety threat or threaten the integrity of the system – doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. You need the numbers to drive the detention needs, not set an arbitrary number that then drives your operation.”
The government needs to end “lockup quotas,” these “guaranteed minimum” contracts that ensure payment to the private prison contractor, in return for a set minimum number of detention beds, whether or not those beds are actually needed for use and filled, the report explains.
The report also criticizes the use of “tiered pricing,” in which ICE receives a discount on each person detained above the guaranteed minimum, the report says.
The agreements “serve to protect the bottom-line of private companies” while incentivizing the imprisonment of immigrants, says the report.
As part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, ICE was required to increase its number of beds available for immigrant detainees. From 2006 to 2010, facilities were created to “maintain” a 34,000 person (minimum count) bed space capacity, the report details.
“Many members of Congress have urged ICE to interpret this language to require that all detention beds be in use at all times—that is, that a minimum of 34,000 beds not only be funded, but also filled, every day,” says the report.
The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Detention Watch Network, authors of the report, say there is a direct link between lockup quotas and corporate interest in immigration detention, which is unethical.
“The private sector should not be rewarded for placing a price tag on the deprivation of liberty, and the government should be held accountable for being a willful participant in this corrupted system,” say the authors of the report.
Within the past decade, the immigration detention system has grown by 75 percent, the authors note.
“As a first step toward the ultimate closure of all detention facilities, ICE should end the use of guaranteed minimums and tiered pricing, and Congress should eliminate the national detention bed quota,” the report concludes.
