The ACLU on Friday revealed new particulars in regards to the Trump administration’s plans to increase Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in 10 states throughout the nation, with non-public jail firms — whose share costs soared after the election of President Donald Trump — in search of to run at the least a half dozen proposed ICE amenities.
The paperwork, obtained through a Freedom of Data Act request, “sign a large growth of ICE detention capability — together with at amenities infamous for misconduct and abuse — which echo reports earlier this week that the Trump administration has sought proposals for as much as $45 billion to increase immigrant detention,” ACLU said.
“The invention additionally comes on the heels of a ‘strategic sourcing vehicle‘ launched by ICE earlier this month, which referred to as for presidency contractors to submit proposals for immigration detention and associated providers,” the group added.
The more than 250 pages of documents obtained by the ACLU “embrace info relating to facility capability, historical past of facility use, obtainable native transport, proximity to native hospitals, immigration courts, and transport, in addition to entry to native consulates and professional bono authorized providers.”
“Particularly, the paperwork reveal that Geo Group, Inc. (GEO) and CoreCivic submitted proposals for quite a lot of amenities not at the moment in use by ICE,” ACLU stated.
These embrace:
- McFarland Detention Heart in McFarland, California;
- California Metropolis Correctional Heart in California Metropolis, California;
- North Lake Correctional Heart in Baldwin, Michigan;
- Midwest Regional Reception Heart in Leavenworth, Kansas;
- Lea County Detention Heart in Hobbs, New Mexico; and
- South Texas Household Residential Heart in Dilley, Texas.
GEO, CoreCivic, and Administration Coaching Company (MTC) “additionally sought to resume contracts at present ICE detention amenities” in California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington, in keeping with the information.
“The paperwork acquired present essential particulars relating to what we now have lengthy feared — a large growth of ICE detention amenities nationwide in an effort to additional the Trump administration’s dystopian plans to deport our immigrant neighbors and family members,” said Eunice Cho, senior workers lawyer on the ACLU’s Nationwide Jail Mission.
“This growth is a disastrous waste of billions of taxpayer {dollars} that may solely line the coffers of the non-public jail business,” Cho added.
Certainly, GEO shares have almost doubled in worth since Trump’s election, whereas CoreCivic inventory is up 57% over the identical interval.
Not like state prisons or nation and native jails, that are accountable to oversight companies, privately operated ICE detention facilities aren’t topic to state regulation or inspection. And though Division of Homeland Safety detainees aren’t convicted criminals and ICE detention facilities aren’t technically prisons, the amenities are stricken by a historical past of abuse, usually sexual in nature, and generally lethal.
Throughout Trump’s first time period, teams together with the ACLU sounded the alarm on the record number of detainee deaths in ICE custody, and scandals — together with the separation of youngsters from their dad and mom or guardians and forced sterilization of quite a few ladies at an ICE facility in Georgia — sparked widespread outrage and requires reform from immigrant rights defenders.
Nevertheless, abuses continued into the administration of former President Joe Biden, together with “medical neglect, preventable deaths, punitive use of solitary confinement, lack of due process, obstructed access to legal counsel, and discriminatory and racist treatment,” in keeping with a 2024 report published by the Nationwide Immigrant Justice Heart. Biden additionally broke a marketing campaign promise to cease holding federal prisoners and immigration detainees in non-public prisons.
Since Trump took workplace in January after being elected on a promise to hold out the most important deportation marketing campaign in U.S. historical past, contemporary stories of ICE detainee abuse and poor detention situations have been reported. These embrace alleged denial of medical care, inadequate entry to female hygiene merchandise, and rotten meals on the South Louisiana ICE Processing Heart in Basile, Louisiana, the place Tufts College Ph.D. pupil and Palestine defender Rümeysa Öztürk is being held with out cost.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the past months, every government order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core a part of a technique to make the right-wing flip really feel inevitable and overwhelming. However, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to recollect in Truthout final November, “Collectively, we’re extra highly effective than Trump.”
Certainly, the Trump administration is pushing by government orders, however — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in authorized limbo and face courtroom challenges from unions and civil rights teams. Efforts to quash anti-racist instructing and DEI applications are stalled by schooling college, workers, and college students refusing to conform. And communities throughout the nation are coming collectively to boost the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and shield one another in shifting reveals of solidarity.
It will likely be an extended struggle forward. And as nonprofit motion media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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