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Tonight’s topic: Why does is cost so much to house Detainees — while the Detainees get so little?
As the number of people held in immigrant detention centers soars, so do the profits for the companies servicing them.
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The majority of detained migrants are in ICE custody. In 2018, ICE reportedly had 41,134 people in detention, an increase of more than 10,000 from the year before, according to Reuters. As many as 72 percent of those people are held in privately owned facilities, according to data from the Urban Justice Center's Corrections Accountability Project, mostly managed by two massive companies, GEO Group and CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America, which in 2017 earned a combined $985 million from contracts with ICE. In These Times has meticulously documented companies profiting from immigrant detention: "The corporations get paid whether the beds are full or not, arguably providing government an incentive to seek out prisoners so as not to 'waste money.'"
Until this year, both GEO Group and CoreCivic received massive investments from some of the biggest banks in the U.S., including Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America. Since Trump's election, investment in the private prison industry skyrocketed, with banks supplying substantial capital. Chase alone provided a $13 million loan to CoreCivic and gave more than $250 million in revolving credit to both corporations. In response to public pressure, all three banks have pulled out of the private prison game, choosing to let their existing contracts expire without renewing them.
Private prison companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic are responsible for both construction and management of facilities, but, like in prisons, many services within a detention center are also handled by private contractors. Phone companies, for one, can charge prisoners as much as $25 for a 15-minute phone call. In immigrant detention centers, one of the the largest telephone service providers is Talton Communications, which according to the Texas Tribune actually provides detainees with free legal calls, but in exchange for forcing them to call loved ones using pre-paid debit cards and collect calls. Transportation is another major business opportunity, with companies providing vans and buses to move detainees from one facility to another. ICE was transporting detainees via American Airlines until the company asked the agency to stop, again in response to public pressure.
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President Donald Trump expressed optimism that lawmakers would meet his $4.5 billion request for humanitarian assistance, even though the White House has signaled he would veto the House Democrats' version.
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The bill addresses the immediate controversy by appropriating $934.5 million for processing facilities, food, water, sanitary items, blankets, medical services, and safe transportation.
Nearly a Billion dollars to take care of ‘basic human needs’ for around 40,000 people?
Hmmm, that works out to about $25K per person, annually:
$1,000,000,000 |
40,000 |
$25,000
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A person could buy a LOT of food, water, blankets, soap, shampoo, TP, antiseptic with $25,000.
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Or a profiteer could make a HELLUVA Profit, with those kind of margins, and next to no real oversight.
The daily cost for a child in a detention camp is more than a stay in a deluxe room at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
by Luke Darby, GQ.com — June 25, 2019
The Trump administration has been holding migrant children—whether they came to the U.S. alone or were forcibly separated from their guardians—in a network of makeshift tent camps since last summer. An unnamed official at the Department of Health and Human Services told NBC News that housing costs $775 per child per day.
That's more than a $675 deluxe guest room at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. (The average U.S. hotel room costs $129.)
Maintenance reportedly eats up most of the $775 daily cost per child for the tent camps, since it's difficult to keep temporary structures suitable for humans in a desert. In permanent facilities run by Health and Human Services, the cost is $256 per person per night, and NBC News estimates that even keeping children with their parents and guardians in Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities would only cost $298 per night.
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Brief interlude: from the mouths of America’s poets and song-writers ...
Hmmm, if a freedom-seeking child is kept for 3 months in U.S. Custody, at the cost of $775 per day (and an freedom-seeking adult costs US Taxpayers $256 per day) — that works out to:
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$69,750 |
for 3 months, per child |
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$23,040 |
for 3 months, per adult |
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projected out |
over a year ... |
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$282,875 |
annually, per child |
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$93,440 |
annually, per adult |
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20,000 |
children |
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20,000 |
adults |
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$5,657,500,000 |
annually |
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$1,868,800,000 |
annually |
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Those ball-park bottom-line numbers, mean that after all is said and done …
The Prisoner-profiteers are going to need some BIGGER Appropriations.
And hell, Refugees and Asylum-seekers are technically, not even prisoners …
They are technically “detainees” … that is “indefinite detainees”.
SO why in the world does the unregulated Private Prison industry get the gig?
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SOMETHING is very WRONG with this picture — this picture of what America NOW stands for.
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Matthew 19:14 (ASV)
But Jesus said, Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven.
Remind a Republican of that, the next time you run into one.
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