Private detention centers - most of which are operated by CCA - are key to the federal government's goal of "ensuring the departure from the United States of all removable aliens," which are estimated to total about 12 million.
The math is simple. More demand for immigrant detention beds, plus more government funding, equals more business for Corrections Corporation of America. Every year since 2003, the company has made record profits.
In San Diego, the ACLU lawsuit prompted ICE to move some of the detainees to other detention centers. It also prompted CCA to propose constructing a new facility nearby that would hold four times more detainees.
CCA plays the game of politics like a pro. After all forty percent of its revenue comes from federal contracts. The company backs key politicians who support an immigration crackdown, and has intensified its lobbying in order to influence those still on the fence.
Judy Greene, A criminal justice analyst with Justice Strategies, discusses CCA's dominance in the immigrant detention business.
Bob Libal, an opponent of private prisons, says detention centers will likely grow in number after the 2008 election.
CCA spokesman, Michael Davis, talks about CCA's first private prison, the Houston Processing Center.
Luisanna Santibanez speaks on her mother who was in a detention center.
Learn more about T.Don Residential Center, which has been dubbed "America's Family Prison."
Gregg Klein, a financial analyst for BNP Paribas, speaks on the privatized detention industry.
Sergia Santibanez speaks on her experience inside a detention center before she was deported.
Tom Jawetz, a lawyer with ACLU's National Prison Project, speaks on immigrant rights in detention centers.
Changes in the immigration policy and expansion of CCA's detention focus.
Immigration detention centers owned and operated by CCA for ICE and USMS.
Check out the CCA's connections in State and Federal government.
Comparison of a five year comulative total return amoung CCA, S&P 500 index, and competitors.
See ICE's detention bed expansion from 2003 to 2009.
CCA lobbying expenditures from 1998 to 2007.
The nation's largest private prison company has partnered with the federal government to detain close to 1 million undocumented people in the past 5 years until they are deported. In the process, Corrections Corporation of America has made record profits. Critics suggest the CCA cuts corners on its detention contracts in order to increase its revenue at expense of humane conditions. Thanks to political connections and lobby spending, it dominates the industry of immigrant detention. CCA now has close to 10,000 new beds under development in anticipation of continued demand.
We wrote last week that CCA will likely bid on a new detention center in Los Angeles. Andrew Becker at the Center for Investigative Reporting blogs today that ICE will soon begin collecting proposals:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, posted an online notice this week stating that it intends to open bids on Dec. 15 for a contractor to own and operate a low-custody detention facility for men.
The facility would be one of the largest immigration lock-ups in the country. Continuing a policy pushed …
In earnings reports released this week the nation’s two largest private prison operators cited “significant growth opportunities” for detaining immigrants, driven largely by the Obama administration’s emphasis on detaining “criminal aliens.”
The GEO Group – an international private prison operator that draws about 75 percent of its revenue from controlling a quarter of the U.S. private prison industry – said it believes that “this federal initiative to target, detain, and deport “criminal aliens” throughout the country will continue to drive the need for immigration detention beds over the next several years.”
A …
The Center for Investigative Reporting report that:
A second high-ranking official in a two-month-old federal office that oversees immigration detention policy and planning has left the government, sources say.
Cree Zischke, tasked with addressing detainee health care issues for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Detention Policy and Planning, departed just weeks after her boss, Dr. Dora Schriro, left ICE in late September to become commissioner of New York City’s jails.
“I am no longer with the ICE Office of Detention Planning and Policy (sic),” she wrote in an out-of-office auto-reply received on …
On the same day that Corrections Corporation of America opened a new 500-bed immigrant detention center in Georgia, Homeland Security officials released a highly anticipated review of detention centers. Accompanied by recommendations and next steps, the review promises better federal oversight and health care in the largely outsourced network of prisons and jails that house a daily average of 32,000 people with pending immigration and refugee status requests.
“The government has recognized that it has a massive system with serious problems, and has identified steps to ameliorate the situation,” …
On the heels of Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s announcement that it will stop holding children in Corrections Corporation of America’s T. Don Hutto Detention Center, the company assured investors that they still expect plenty of business from the federal government.
“In some respects there may not have been much of a change,” said Damon Hininger, CCA’s President and Chief Operating Officer during a conference call on Thursday with investors.
Hininger said CCA had “just learned yesterday that ICE wants us to renegotiate” the Hutto contract and that a timetable for the negotiations …
The Tennessean reported June 26 that the Tennessee state appeals court will determine if Corrections Corporation of America, the largest U.S. private detention operator, is an equivalent to a government entity, and therefore should release public records to the same extent.
CCA says that “the release of such records will set a bad precedent with other private companies who contract with the state,” reported the newspaper. Currently, private prison operators do not have to release public records.
Alex Friedmann, Prison Legal News Associate Editor and vice president of advocacy group Private Corrections …
Two more detention facilities will be going up in California.
Last week, the AP reported that ICE was seeking proposals to build a privately run 2,200 immigration bed facility in Los Angeles. The facility will be located within a 120 mile radius of the DHS/ICE Los Angeles Field Office currently located at 300 N. Los Angeles Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Currently, ICE can house up to 1,400 detainees at a facility owned by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as well as other local jails it contracts.
Meanwhile, Corrections Corporation …
Immigration Detention Immigration, Customs, & Enforcement Corrections Corporation of America
