ICE plans to make nine facilities more humane, by eliminating lock-downs, increasing visitor time, and providing e-mail access and Internet-based free phone service, the agency says.
The list of changes were leaked in a memo to the Houston Chronicle this week as it begins to implement the changes in low-risk units. Some of the changes will take place in 30 days, while others will take longer.
Other changes to be implemented will include allowing detainees to wear regular clothes, offering movie nights, bingo, dance and cooking classes, fresh plants, and four hours …

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,” …

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 …

No drinking water, changes of clothing, soap or shower – those are the conditions inside a Los Angeles jail for immigrants that prompted the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California to sue the federal government. Detainees also lack access to mail and attorneys.
The facility is designed to detain immigrants for 12 hours or less, but the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency uses it to house immigrants for several weeks. The jail, known as B-18, is located in a basement.
“The facility fails on every level to house detainees in a …

Corrections Corporation of America’s share prices sunk Tuesday after it announced lower earnings than expected in its annual report, but executives said they are “bullish” about the leading private prison provider’s long term future. Even as states cut their corrections budgets, immigrant detainees will provide CCA a steady source of income.
“The detainee growth will come from lots of sources,” CCA CEO John Ferguson told analysts during a telephone conference call. “So there is no reason to believe that these populations won’t just creep up over time.”
The current budget for Immigration …

ICE is looking for a private contractor to carry out inspections at 175 of its immigrant detention centers.
The successful contractor will provide Compliance Inspection Teams (CIT) for annual and pre-occupancy inspections at detention facilities. Each CIT assessment shall assess the detention facility status for compliance with all applicable ICE Detention Standards and provide an inspection report on ICE designated forms.
This is the latest round of annual inspections outsourced by the agency. The first round of semi-annual reports was released in May 2008. In a June 2008 report, ICE’s Office …

Corrections Corporation of America is touring the Donald W. Wyatt detention center, the Providence Journal reports, suggesting the facility may be on the market.

According to W. Zachary Malinowski, Mayor Charles D. Moreau confirmed CCA — and other private prison operators — has shown interest in buying the jail, and that CCA representatives toured the facility Thursday.
The facility first gained media attention last August when Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, a 33-year-old computer engineer from New York, died of complications from cancer while in detention. Critics criticized it for providing inadequate medical …