One of the big issues that has come up in recent years has been the rise of for-profit prisons and detainment centers. This usually refers to the experience of American-born prisoners. However, a recent development concerns for-profit prisons and illegal immigrants. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has opened the Mesa Verde Detention Center, a 400-bed, privately-owned immigrant detention center in Central California. This facility will be for minimum security detainees. It is owned by the GEO Group, a for-profit prison corporation, who renovated a defunct prison (shut down due to lack of inmates) for $10 million to open this facility.
The GEO Group has been criticized in the past for “neglect and poor conditions” at their other centers set up for immigrants. One of the main gripes with this new facility is that it is in a rural area of California where there aren’t any immigration court judges. This means that each immigrant will have to attend court through a live video feed. The location of the prison will also make it difficult for immigrants to meet with their attorneys.
According to a press release from the GEO Group, the Mesa Verde Detention Center “is expected to generate approximately $17 million in annualized revenues.” It is in the best financial interest to keep as many detainees in the facility as possible. According to reports, each detainee would be worth $107 each day he/she is held. According to Think Progress:
That incentive likely helps maintain the federal government’s bed quota mandate, a federal requirement for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain at least 34,000 people per day in detention facilities. A quick glance at just one recent federal solicitation for a 2,000-bed immigrant detention facility requests that “the contractor will be required to house a daily population of 100 [percent] of the accepted contract beds.”
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