By now everyone has heard of the 2-day-long uprising at a Texas prison housing "detained immigrants." If not, here's an article describing the situation.
Here's a long quote from the article.
Prison-reform advocates say they’re not at all surprised by an uprising at a Texas prison that has forced the relocation of some 2,800 detained immigrants.
. . .
It took two days for county and federal police agencies to control the protests, with authorities even resorting to tear gas.
The inmates were reportedly protesting medical care at the facility, which is part of a little-known network of 13 prisons designated for immigrants, many of whom reentered the United States after being deported.
All are run by private companies, a fact advocates for immigration and prison reform say results in a second-class system with insufficient oversight.
“It’s a predictable consequence of the Bureau of Prisons turning a blind eye to the abuse at Criminal Alien Requirement prisons,” said Carl Takei, a staff attorney at the ACLU who visited the facility in 2013.
The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
“Willacy is aptly a symbol of everything that is wrong with the criminalization of immigration and BOP’s use of privatization,” Takei told Fusion.
. . .
Takei said when he visited Willacy inmates described “vermin and insects” crawling in and out of the tents, overflowing toilets, along with severe overcrowding.
Issa Arnita, a spokesperson for the company that runs the prison, Management and Training Corporation (MTC), said that they “believe offenders receive timely, quality health care,” noting that their health services have been accredited by two independent associations.
Referred to as “Tent City” by locals—most “dormitories” are Kevlar tents that house about 200 men in bunk beds that are reportedly spaced only a few feet apart—the facility is one of 13 prisons known as 13 Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) prisons.
Oooopppsss!!! What was that? You say this place was run by
Management and Training Corporation (MTC) ? And where have we heard of MTC before?
Google and Wikipedia are your friend.
The Management and Training Corporation (MTC) is the third-biggest for-profit prison corporation in the United States as of 2013.[1] It was founded in 1980, but according to the company's website, "its roots stretch back to the mid-1960s when MTC was first conceived through the Education and Training Division of Thiokol Corporation. Since 1966, it has operated centers for Job Corps -- a U.S. Department of Labor job-training program that prepares young people for meaningful careers. MTC entered the corrections industry in 1987 when it opened one of the first privately-operated corrections facilities in the United States."[2]
In July 2006, "Management & Training Corporation (MTC) . . . elected Andrew S. Natsios to its eight-member Board of Directors."[3]
Writing in 2006 for the Le Monde Diplomatique, Avery F. Gordon noted that: "Lane McCotter is an executive with Management and Training Corporation, a private prison company, which he joined after being forced to resign as director of the Utah Department of Corrections, following the death of a prisoner who had been shackled naked to a chair for 16 hours. US Attorney General John Ashcroft chose McCotter to direct the reopening of the Iraqi prisons under US rule and to train Iraqi guards; McCotter chose Abu Ghraib as the best site for the main prison and then oversaw its organisational transition."[4]
. . .
MTC attended the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in San Diego.[5]
For your further reading enjoyment:
The Influence of the Private Prison Industry in Immigrant Detention
Corporate Con Game
"Private prisons profit like a hotel," the video states. "The more occupants they can throw in, the more money comes out."
Maybe this is part of the explanation of the GOP opposition to President Obama's immigration reform executive orders. After all, the fewer brown-skinned people we lock up, the less profit GOP donors make off human misery.