How Many Immigrants Must You Imprison to Turn a Profit?
by May Va Lor

Locking up immigrants is big business for the for-profit private prison industry. And this makes sense in a time when states are projecting a decline in their prison populations due to a decrease in crime, stifling budget deficits, efforts by prison activists to repeal harsh sentencing guidelines, and shifting attitudes toward drug rehabilitation programs and other alternatives to incarceration for non-violent drug offenders.

According to "Cutting Correctly" a report by the Justice Policy Institute and criminal justice researcher Judith Greene, states faced with fiscal crises are closing prisons, repealing mandatory sentences, implementing drug policy, sentencing, and parole reforms to save taxpayers millions of dollars.

Activists were feeling hopeful when the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) — whose growth has exponentially surpassed that of the states — cancelled its third wave of Criminal Alien Requirements (CAR)/immigrant prisons because of lack of projected population growth. In addition, the private prison industry anticipated two contracts to operate two 1500 bed facilities in the second phase of CAR prisons — but it had its hopes crushed when the BOP only awarded one 1500 bed contract to Corrections Corporation of America in economically impoverished McRae, Ga.

Residents in rural, poor McComb, Miss., the other contender for the CAR II prisons, were devastated when the BOP decided to not contract with its Cornell Corrections’ facility. But Cornell still has hope that that facility will be built, and obtain a federal contract. As George Killinger of Cornell said in an Enterprise-Journal story: "There’s got to be some form of prison population that will grow, we do know that we have a site and community and partnership that we would be anxious to start again."

The industry is undoubtedly looking to use its political connections and exploit the events of September 11, 2001 and a raging anti-immigrant climate to maximize their profits. Although the BOP stopped issuing new CAR contracts, industry representatives claim that they have been asked to hold the site they've already identified. They said they have been promised that new Requests for Proposals will be issued through the Immigration and Naturalization Services, Office of Detention Trustee and/or Department of Homeland Security as soon as the dust settles from the current restructuring proposals.

The private prison industry has stated that they are expecting 7,500 new beds to house immigrants in the next 18 months. These are beds that the industry desperately needs to fill its empty prisons, and to show investors that the industry is growing and profitable.

According to Cornell’s 2002 1^st quarter conference call, President Steve Logan refers to business opportunities in INS detention:

I think what you’re gonna see, and what we’re seeing with this shifting in the budget process with the Bureau of Prisons is there is, especially since the events of 9-11, there is such an emphasis on the borders, and has been an emphasis on the borders … And so, while we have not been given any clear indication from the Department of Justice, it’s our expectation that you’ll see some of these beds come out more along the border sites, probably comparable in size to what we were seeing on the Bureau of Prisons.

Similar to the failed War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism is simply a mechanism to increase law enforcement powers and scapegoat immigrants and people of color in the name of public safety/national security.

Rutgers University Professor Michael Welch’s article "The Role of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Prison-Industrial Complex" demonstrates how the "INS is not merely imitating the larger criminal justice machinery, but is operating under the same canopy of social control."

He writes: "The INS responds to the market imperatives of the prison-industrial complex, an enterprise whereby lawmakers and undocumented immigrants are commodified as raw materials for private profit."

Even though the INS has had a budget increase of almost 400% in the past decade, the significant increases have gone to beefing up the border, deterring "illegal immigration", trying and deporting undocumented immigrants, and increasing INS detention capacity.

INS’ social services arm is a miniscule piece of the INS budget. For example, in March of 2001, there were more than 57,000 applications for political asylum seekers in the backlog. And according to the General Accounting Office, since 1994, the INS backlog on processing applications increased nearly fourfold to about 3.9 million.

In July 2002, Congress voted to include the law enforcement arm of the INS into the Department of Homeland Security; INS social services function will be housed in the Department of Justice. The splitting up of INS is likely to result in increased detentions and deportations of immigrants in the form of heightened border patrol measures, workplace raids, absconder taskforces, and other "anti-terrorism" joint taskforces.

In the last six months, the INS has proven how serious they are about terrorism.

For example, Operation Tarmac — which was launched last November at Newark International Airport to remove undocumented immigrants or immigrants with criminal convictions from "high-security-jobs" at U.S. airports — has resulted in investigations of 190,000 people, 500 arrests and 260 criminal charges according to Joseph R. Greene, INS Assistant Commission for Investigations.

According to the San Jose Headline News, however, none of the immigrants picked up for Operation Tarmac have links to terrorism. In fact, most of those picked up were service workers such as janitors, baggage checkers, luggage handlers and were charged of immigration violations.

In addition, absconder taskforces — the crackdown of immigrants with outstanding deportation orders have also swept the country. Recently, 131 Pakistanis were deported. According to a July 10^th Journal-Gazette article, none of them had ties to terrorism. Yet, in the name of national security, the INS is looking to deport 5,900 immigrants; they have already apprehended 700 immigrants, according to Greene.

The immigrants who are being deported have stories similar to 14-year-old Mohammad Akram’s father. Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), an organization of working-class young South Asians in New York City, work with him and other detainees. DRUM has been demanding the unconditional release of detainees and INS accountability to the communities from which detainees have disappeared.

Mohammad’s family had a family business and was almost done paying off the mortgage on their home. But after the INS picked up the father, he spent five months at Passaic County Jail (New Jersey) and was deported to Pakistan in April. Mohammad and his family have sold their home and business and will be returning to Pakistan.

The for-profit private prison industry are looking to bank off of people like Mohammad’s father and other undocumented immigrants who, because of international trade agreements which have destabilized their local economies, have migrated to the U.S. in order to support their families. They journey for days on perilous routes in mountain and desert areas only to be detained and deported as victims of harsh 1996 and 2001 anti-immigration laws. And in some cases — such as many Cambodians, whose average age is 23 — they are being repatriated to a country they never knew.

The private prison industry is right. By targeting immigrants they have identified a population that has little civil rights and is the focus of anti-government rhetoric. The prison industry is working in concert with policymakers to ensure that there are a significant amount of beds readily available to cage immigrants. And the money is good too.

May Va Lor works for Grassroots Leadership and coordinates "Not With Our Money!", a corporate campaign intended to abolish the private prison industry by forcing its number one financier, Lehman Brothers, to divest. A refugee of Hmong descent whose family fled Laos in 1980, she works in New York City. She may be reached by email at nwom@nomoreprisons.org or by phone at 646.486.6715