DHS concerns about ICE detention centers

Overall, our inspections of four detention facilities revealed violations of ICE’s 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards, which set requirements for facilities housing detainees. This report summarizes findings on our latest round of unannounced inspections at four detention facilities housing ICE detainees. Although the conditions varied among the facilities and not every problem was present at each, our observations, detainee and staff interviews, and document reviews revealed severalcommon issues. Because we observed immediate risks oregregious violations of detention standards at facilities inAdelanto, CA, and Essex County, NJ, including nooses indetainee cells, overly restrictive segregation, inadequatemedical care, unreported security incidents, andsignificant food safety issues, we issued individual reportsto ICE after our visits to these two facilities. All fourfacilities had issues with expired food, which putsdetainees at risk for food-borne illnesses. At threefacilities, we found that segregation practices violatedstandards and infringed on detainee rights. Two facilitiesfailed to provide recreation outside detainee housing units.Bathrooms in two facilities’ detainee housing units weredilapidated and moldy. At one facility, detainees were notprovided appropriate clothing and hygiene items to ensurethey could properly care for themselves. Lastly, one facilityallowed only non-contact visits, despite being able toaccommodate in-person visitation. Our observationsconfirmed concerns identified in detainee grievances,which indicated unsafe and unhealthy conditions tovarying degrees at all of the facilities we visited.

The Adelanto, LaSalle, and Aurorafacilities are owned and operated by the GEO Group Inc., and the Essex facility is owned and operated by the Essex County Department of Corrections.

Click to expand...

GEO Group's parent company, Wackenhut Corporation, has funded the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

GEO Group itself has also been a member as of 2010, according to In These Times.[28]While Wackenhut (later GEO) was a member of ALEC's crime Task Force, ALEC pushed legislation to privatize prisons, and at the same time advanced harsh sentencing bills to put more people in prison for more time, particularly "truth-in-sentencing" legislation calling for all violent offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences before being eligible for release, and "three strikes you're out" bills requiring mandatory life imprisonment for a third felony conviction. These bills became law in a majority of states during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Between 2003 and 2010, ProPublica reports that GEO Group contributed to many candidates who have or had connections to ALEC

Click to expand...

The ten-year contract renewals from the Federal Bureau of Prisons are for facilities in Big Spring, Texas, that house more than 3,500 illegal immigrants combined. The deals are expected to generate about $664 million in revenue for Geo over the next decade, keeping in line with the firm's most recently issued financial guidance.Geo Group boasts a market capitalization of nearly $4 billion. In Florida, it operates five of the state's seven private prisons.

Click to expand...

After President Trump’s election, GEO’s stock prices soared. And shortly after Trump assumed office, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new administration would continue the use of private prisons. A few months later, the Trump administration awarded GEO a $110 million, 10-year federal contract.

The reason that federal contractors have been barred from making contributions for the past 75 years is to prevent pay-to-play in the contracting process. Public officials are supposed to make contracting decisions based on what is best for the public, not based on who spent the most money getting them elected. GEO Group’s illegal donations have the appearance of a pay-to-play: since Trump was elected with GEO’s backing, the company has reaped enormous political and financial benefits.

Click to expand...

americanwoman said:

Looking further into GEO, it's not surprising.

George C. Zoley - SourceWatch



Prison and detainees center are big bucks.

https://www.bizjournals.com/southfl...government-contracts-renewed-to-the-tune.html



Private Prison Company GEO Group's Pay-to-Play | Campaign Legal Center



So why stop criminals and illegals anyway, people are getting rich here!!

Our own department of homeland security has many concerns, I think first we have to look at the companies that run these places.

Click to expand...

truthatallcost said:

The men profiting from illegal immigration & incarceration should get a taste of their own medicine, and be sent to prison. They're profiting from the breakdown of society, the miserable conditions migrants are fleeing from, and need jail time.

Click to expand...

americanwoman said:

Agree. These people are the ones lobbying and paying off our representatives to keep our country down.

Click to expand...

Rogue Valley said:

Another example of Trumps "Pay to Play" administration.

Click to expand...

Mycroft said:

Now you know why nobody (except Trump) wants to deal with border issues...it's all about the money.

Companies running detention facilities getting rich.

Congressmen taking money from those company's lobbyists.

All of them trying their hardest to ignore the problem.

And since Trump is working hard to upset their applecart, the lot of them are attacking Trump any way they possibly can.

In the meantime, almost 150,000 people...six times the population of my town...have come across the border...in one month.

Click to expand...

And shortly after Trump assumed office, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new administration would continue the use of private prisons. A few months later, the Trump administration awarded GEO a $110 million, 10-year federal contract.

Click to expand...

americanwoman said:

Except Trump, my rump! He accepted money too.

It might not have started with him but he is riding the wave.

Click to expand...

Mycroft said:

Now you know why nobody (except Trump) wants to deal with border issues...it's all about the money.
Companies running detention facilities getting rich.
Congressmen taking money from those company's lobbyists.
All of them trying their hardest to ignore the problem.
And since Trump is working hard to upset their applecart, the lot of them are attacking Trump any way they possibly can.

Click to expand...

americanwoman said:

Agree. These people are the ones lobbying and paying off our representatives to keep our country down.

Click to expand...

Mycroft said:

What money did Trump accept and from whom?

But seriously, what else could the new administration do but continue what had already been established? There wasn't any money to set up any other means to deal with detainees.

It's my guess that Trump thought he would be successful in getting Congress to deal with the source of the problem, thereby making the issue of dealing with detainees much less of an issue. He turned out to be wrong. There was no way Congress would help him deal with the source of the problem.

As I said...it's all about the money.

Click to expand...

On August 19, the day after Yates' announcement, GEO Corrections Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of the GEO Group, donated $100,000 to the pro-Trump PAC Rebuilding America Now. Then, on November 1 —seven days before the presidential election— it gave another $125,000 to the organization.

In addition, GEO Corrections Holding Inc. had donated $200,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican PAC, on September 27, 2016, and $100,000 to the Conservative Solutions PAC on April 17, 2015.

The GEO Group maintains that despite these donations, it does not take a political stance. In a statement, Paez told Newsweek : “Our political activities focus entirely on promoting the use of public-private partnerships and our contributions should not be construed as an endorsement of all policies or positions adopted by any individual candidate.”

But these donations might be illegal. In November, the Campaign Legal Center, a D.C.-based organization of election law experts, submitted a complaint to the Federal Election Commission, which it updated in December. The document pointed out that “according to publicly-available records, GEO Corrections Holdings, Inc. appears to be a federal contractor.” Under campaign finance laws, federal contractors cannot make political donations.

Click to expand...

In August 2016, the then Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced that the Obama administration would begin phasing out private prisons. In a memo about the plan, Yates said that the U.S. prison population had dropped from 220,000 people in 2013 to 195,000. As a result, the Department of Justice did not need to rely on private prisons, which had held 15 percent of all prisoners in 2013. The declining number of inmates, Yates said, “means that we can better allocate our resources to ensure that inmates are in the safest facilities and receiving the best rehabilitative services.”

Click to expand...

According to federal government data, over 60 percent of people are held in privately-run immigrant prisons. For example, GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America/CoreCivic together detain approximately 15,000 people in immigration detention per day.

According to federal government data, GEO Group receives more taxpayer dollars for immigration detention than any other ICE contractor. In FY 2017, GEO Group received $184 million, followed by Corrections Corporation of America/CoreCivic that received $135 million for immigration detention related service obligations.

Click to expand...

Is it more cost effective to detain people in privately-run immigrant prisons?[/h][h=1]No. According to federal government data, it costs $149.58 taxpayer dollars to detain one person for one day in a privately-run immigrant prisons, as opposed to $98.27 in a municipal-run immigrant jail.

Federal government data obtained by the ILRC indicate that, on average, immigrant prisons and jails are holding people for longer periods of time under the Trump administration than under the Obama administration. In FY 2017, the average length of stay at any one immigrant prison or jail was 34 days, compared to 22 days in FY 2016 and 21 days in FY 2015.

Click to expand...

americanwoman said:

Detention Map & Statistics — Freedom for Immigrants
Longer detention time = more money.
Statistics show it costs more to detain someone in a private detention and we are holding them longer and longer, making people money.
MAGA! Don't tell me Trump cannot do nothing when the Obama administration was actively trying to phase out private centers.

Click to expand...

Rogue Valley said:

Another example of Trumps "Pay to Play" administration.

Click to expand...

Simon W. Moon said:

I see now.

Trump will dump so much money — so much money, the best money — so much money on these folks that the weight of bundled bills will upset their apple carts.
Pretty clever.

Good Old Trump and his n[SUP]th[/SUP] dimensional clothes only the faithful can see.

Click to expand...

Lovebug said:

Perhaps with Mexico's help, they get enough breathing room to come up with better solutions.
Time to sit down and solve the crisis, instead of sitting in some high abode yelling foul.

Click to expand...

Simon W. Moon said:

Sending asylum seekers (as opposed to only people who cross illegally) to the folks who're running the facilities seem to be increasing the companies running detention facilities.
Is sending them more business the same as upsetting their apple cart?

Click to expand...

americanwoman said:

What money did Trump get?


Private Prison Company Geo Group Gave Generously to Trump and Now Has Lucrative Contract

Click to expand...

What else can the administration do, you ask. From that same article:



Seems like there are steps away from private prisons and detention centers, if you care enough.

Click to expand...

Mycroft said:

Do you think asylum seekers...who have also crossed the border illegally...should be sent to a different detention facility?

Click to expand...

Mycroft said:

You don't seem to be aware of what Trump is doing to upset the applecart.

Click to expand...

Simon W. Moon said:

The asylum seekers didn't cross the border illegally.
They went to check points and asked for asylum.

So yeah, they should be treated differently than folks who do something different.

Click to expand...

Apparently, he's weighing down the apple carts of the private detention center companies with bundles of cash.

Click to expand...

Mycroft said:

???
Are you pretending not to know things? Or are you truly unaware of what's happening?
Thousands are crossing the border illegally, looking for the nearest border patrol agent and asking for asylum...and it's not happening at check points.
And I didn't say anything about being treated differently. I asked if they should be sent to different detention facilities.

Click to expand...

Mycroft said:

No. He's trying to end the ability for people to cross the border illegally. If he's successful, that will reduce the number of people in detention facilities. That means those companies get less money. Those companies don't want that to happen.
It's all about the money.

Click to expand...

Simon W. Moon said:

I think that folks who come trying to find the authorities to seek asylum should be treated differently than folks who try to be here under the radar.
One group is looking for help through legit channels.
The other group is trying to skirt the rules.


Previously, asylum seekers weren't detained with teh sneaks.
Unnecessarily adding the asylum seekers to the sneaks increased the revenue for the detention companies.

You're free to have confidence in w/e you imagine will happen in the future.
But currently lobbyists are getting an increase in profit from the actions taken by a politician they lobbied.

Imho, when I use the phrase about upsetting the apple cart, I mean something more disruptive than upping someone's profits.

Click to expand...

Mycroft said:

Whether they are looking for asylum or they just got unlucky and got caught, they all have to be checked out so yes, it's easier to put them all in the same facility so they can be sorted out. That saves time and money.

As I said...it's all about the money, whether it's the profit for the detention companies, the payment for lobbyist work or the money that ends up in politician's pockets. None of them want their applecart upset and that's what Trump is doing to them.

Click to expand...