How Trump's inner circle profits from jailing babies

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday July 05, 2018 · 8:38 AM PDT

2018/07/05 · 08:38

MCALLEN, TX - SEPTEMBER 08: A girl from Central America rests on thermal blankets at a detention facility run by the U.S. Border Patrol on September 8, 2014 in McAllen, Texas. The Border Patrol opened the holding center to temporarily house the children after tens of thousands of families and unaccompanied minors from Central America crossed the border illegally into the United States during the spring and summer. Although the flow of underage immigrants has since slowed greatly, thousands of them are now housed in centers around the United States as immigration courts process their cases. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Private contractors—nonprofits, private corporations, and religious groups—with strong ties to the Trump administration also happen to be making billions out of Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy of kidnapping and detaining migrant children. Many of these organizations have been in the business for a while, before Trump took office. But they have both given a lot of money to Trump's campaign and/or are part of his administration and are profiting. It's a two-fer for the Trumpsters—profiting from white supremacy.

Two of the private prison companies, the Geo Group and CoreCivic, housing detained migrant families each donated $250,000 to Trump's inauguration. The Geo Group just happens to have hired Brian Ballard, who lobbied for Mr. Trump’s golf courses in Florida before he became president, as their lobbyist. His lobbying group is registered on behalf of the Geo Group to lobby on "immigration regulation." The Geo Group has also given heavily to Republicans: "$170,000 to a joint fund-raising committee set up between the Republican Party and the Trump campaign; $50,000 to a 'super PAC' supporting the president; and, more recently, donations to Republican Party organizations focusing on the House and Senate."

Then there's General Dynamics, where Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis was a long-time board member until his appointment in the Trump administration. The huge military contractor has apparently found a profitable sideline in the immigration detention business, offering "training and technical assistance to the shelters and provides other administrative services to the government." While Mattis is off of the board, there's a much closer Trump tie to the company in the company’s chief executive, Phebe Novakovic. She served on Trump's transition team and is one of the CEOs who shows up at the White House for his dog and pony shows on trade and the economy. Oh, and General Dynamics has "registered to lobby on the issue of 'border security,' also operates a PAC that has donated to members of both parties, including more than $1.1 million to Republican candidates and causes during this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics."

One of the nonprofits involved, BCFS, operates a number of the detention centers for children, including a tent city outside of El Paso. It happens to have a former Republican congressman, Henry Bonilla, as a lobbyist and board member. Bonilla was considered for Trump's agriculture secretary, meeting with Trump in December of 2016. BCFS also has the lobbying services of Ray Sullivan, a lobbyist and former chief of staff to Rick Perry, before Perry joined Trump's cabinet as energy secretary.

It's also so cozy. There's also the less disturbing but nonetheless existing tie of the DeVos family foundation—as in Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos—ties to Bethany Christian Services which provides foster care to immigrant children. Bethany has been in the business for decades, and also has condemned Trump's policy of kidnapping children saying it is "deeply troubled and concerned" and that "all children belong with their families." The organization says it works with the federal government to "reunify unaccompanied and separated children with their families as soon as possible."

The cross-over of private prison and defense contractors into migrant detention is the corrupt and dangerous trend here, because they have a ton of money to spend in campaign donations to make sure they continue to profit off of these horrendous policies. That, more than anything, threatens to entrench mass detention as permanent policy for the government and to prevent Congress from ever doing real immigration reform. I guess that's why Guantanamo hasn't been floated as a prison for migrant families yet—it's run by the government, no one would profit from it.

How Trump's inner circle profits from jailing babies

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