ICE is trying to sneak in a step ahead of California's ban on for-profit detention centers

by Laura Clawson

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019 Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019 at 6:58:33am PDT

ADELANTO, CA - NOVEMBER 15: A guard escorts an immigrant detainee from his 'segregation cell' back into the general population at the Adelanto Detention Facility on November 15, 2013 in Adelanto, California. Most detainees in segregation cells are sent there for fighting with other immigrants, according to guards. The facility, the largest and newest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), detention center in California, houses an average of 1,100 immigrants in custody pending a decision in their immigration cases or awaiting deportation. The average stay for a detainee is 29 days. The facility is managed by the private GEO Group. ICE detains an average of 33,000 undocumented immigrants in more than 400 facilities nationwide. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

California is banning new contracts on for-profit prisons and immigrant detention centers effective January 1—so ICE is rushing to open some new detention centers before then. It took just five days after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the ban before ICE posted notices looking for three “turnkey ready” facilities, Mother Jones reports.

The agency is looking for facilities to “provide housing, medical care, transportation, guard services, meals, and the day to day needs for ICE detainees” near San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles. ICE currently has four contracts for for-profit detention centers in California, including the notorious Adelanto facility where a 2018 surprise inspection found “significant threats to the safety, rights, and health of detainees.” The contracts on those facilities expire in 2020, though, and the new law blocks the contracts from being renewed. That’s why ICE is on the hunt—in a rush—for new facilities to imprison up to 6,750 immigrants.

”Everything about this is gaming the system,” said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, the author of the for-profit prison ban. Indeed. In addition to the effort to evade a law before it can go into effect, the rush suggests ICE will be willing to bend federal contracting procedures. “These twisted somersaults to push and bend federal protocols are a sign of desperation,” Bonta told Mother Jones. “It’s what you’d expect from a dying industry.”