Atrocities. Hear me: The United States is committing atrocities at the border. And perhaps the worst part: people are profiting from them. Perhaps even you and me.
Let's reach back into my blog-hopper. I've had this topic as a draft since June, 2018. This was the article that caught my eye a year ago, when we were in the midst of learning about children ripped from mothers' arms and put in cages. Someone is making money here.
You've recently heard about us taxpayers – every one of us – paying $750 per day, per bed for holding children in cages without soap or toothbrushes. Is this true or just overblown snowflake bullshit? It's true. Your family of four? A cool $90,000 per month. What the hell is happening here?
Private prisons and immigration detention centers is a multi-billion (with a "B") dollar industry. Corporations are profiting from holding people and not letting them leave, at the behest of the United States Government.
The story of for-profit detention is long and complex. It isn't new by any means. For-profit immigrant detention started with for-profit prisons, which is a whole 'nother topic, disturbing in itself, and one that you can -- and should -- explore by watching the Netflix documentary "13th" about the 13th Amendment and the American criminal criminal justice system. No, that's not a typo. Our criminal justice system is criminal. So much wrong, and perhaps I'll tackle that topic someday.
Yes, it's a long and sordid story, and one that has me overwhelmed in bringing this piece to you. I'm not an investigative journalist; I'm just trying to make sense of the things that will never make sense in our Orwellian world. And this one is tough. It's complex, and it's emotionally wrenching.
The for-profit immigrant detention centers were established in the 1980s, and have now reached crisis numbers of detainees, held in crowded conditions for longer and longer periods of time. Here is a disturbing set of data about them. We have a complex web of detention centers, medical services, transportation services, and food services, all for-profit and all working at the government's expense to increase their bottom line. Their mission is money, NOT providing an appropriate level of care for the detainees. When you have "customers" who are powerless to complain, murky standards, few inspections, and a government that just doesn't care, it is a recipe for Atrocity.
There are various and many facilities for adults, for families, for unaccompanied minors, and for young children separated from their families, which, by the way, is still happening today.
There are a few companies that run and profit from the detention centers. Caliburn International, the parent company of Comprehensive Health Services, operates a huge "temporary" (read: tent city) detention site in Homestead, Florida. Caliburn runs the only for-profit operator of youth migrant centers. Ex-TЯUMP chief of staff John Kelly sits on the board of Caliburn, and before he joined the administration, he sat on the board of the private equity firm that owns Caliburn. Homestead is one of the most heinous of the facilities, and has continued to collect millions of federal dollars, in quiet agreements as late as two months ago.
Two others own facilities at the border. One is CoreCivic, previously known as Corrections Corporation of America, has its roots in private prisons and has a dark past.
Another corporation is GEO Group, which runs immigration detention centers as well as prisons and community reentry facilities in Texas and throughout the United States, to the tune of 96,000 beds.
And not only are these corporations making billions of dollars from us tax-payers, GEO Group, for one, is using the detainees as cheap labor and charging them outrageous sums for basic necessities.
The corporations and their shareholders are not the only ones profiting from imprisoning people seeking a better life. GEO Group was recently found to have donated to Texas congressmen for their election campaigns. During the last election cycle, plenty of Members of Congress have received money from these corporations. Here is a 2015 exposé that outlines the money from for-profit prisons making its way into congresspeople's pockets.
Plenty of Wall Street biggies are profiting, too.
And I hate to break it to you, but you and I may be profiting as well. If you have a 401(k), there is a good chance that one of your funds is invested in these corporations. According to The Baffler, "The fund that owns the most private prison stock is innocuously called the Vanguard REIT Index Fund. As of the end of May it owned 7.5 percent of CoreCivic’s market value and 7.4 percent of GEO Group’s." What you can do: look into the funds that your 401(k) has invested in. Write letters to the fund manager, to your company's HR department. Bring it to light and insist on divestment. If you have your own mutual funds, look at their stocks and divest. Invest in more socially conscious funds.
Oversight? What oversight? I'm in healthcare, and Medicare dollars indirectly pay my salary. You can bet that there are frequent surveys and inspections and tons of rules and regulations that Medicare requires of facilities and agencies to ensure that their money is well spent and the patients are getting the care they require. Didn't cross a "t" or dot an "i"? Medicare will take its money back. I could find very little information on the regulations, oversight, and accountability in these detention facilities. It's because there is very little accountability. And we all know what happens when there is no oversight to a situation when there is a lot of money to be had and greed rears its ugly head. It's a story as old as time. When human beings are at their mercy? Even worse. Atrocity.
It's only now, when there are found to be ATROCIOUS conditions, and children especially are hurting, that we even beginning to think about it.
So let's think about it. What is happening inside these private detention centers?
Here is a 2011 investigative piece by NPR about GEO Group's private prisons, which was quite concerning back then (Part 2 here). Things weren't improving by 2016, when an audit by Obama's Department of Justice found several alarming conditions. Since then, things have gotten worse, particularly in the immigration detention facilities. The population in the immigration detention facilities has soared, from about 6,800 in 1994 to more than 52,000 today.
Several of GEO Group's immigration detention facilities throughout the country were inspected over a few months late 2018 - mid 2019. They were found to have major deficiencies in many areas, including food safety, sanitation, and health safety. Read the report by the Inspector General's office, published last month.
What is most upsetting is the abuse that the children have seen. A year ago, we learned of 45's policy of "zero tolerance" whereby children were taken from their families. When it was brought to light, an injunction was placed. But GEO Group continued to commit family separations after the injunction. The "temporary" shelter at Homestead, where government regulations under the Flores agreement require releasing or placing a child within 20 days, has been holding children for as long as five months. It's ugly at Homestead.
Simply being separated from their parents wreaks havoc on a child's developing brain. And the children continue to be traumatized to this day, not only by being separated, not only by not having the basic necessities, but by having cruel rules imposed upon them, such as a rule against hugging each other or even touching each other. Even family members are prohibited from hugging each other. This alone is extremely dangerous to a growing child. The psychological trauma continues when they have to sleep over-crowded on the floor with flimsy mylar blankets with the lights on at all times. They aren't allowed to bathe, they have no clean clothes, they don't have toothbrushes, they are inadequately fed. They aren't being educated, and they don't get to go outside to play. The abuse goes on and on. We must not turn away from the atrocities that the little children are facing.
There have been deaths. Twenty-four adult immigrants have died in U.S. custody in the last two years as well as six migrant children. Is this ok with you?
What is being done? And what can we do as citizens?
We've had animal facilities more swiftly raided and dismantled for inhumane conditions. Right now, there are still hardly any inspections or oversight, but this is slowly changing.
Awareness is being raised, which is the first step. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and now that the stink of this multi-billion-dollar human detention business has been brought to light, there is more action coming.
There have been some inspections. A quasi-inspection allowed to journalists had the facility in tip-top condition in a carefully staged visit after an earlier visit by lawyers and a pediatrician. But under the shiny veneer, hints of the stink arose.
I mentioned the Inspector General's report on adult facilities above, but even more shocking were the inspections of facilities holding families. Most alarming is the Office of the Inspector General's report from July 2, 2019. The report includes some shocking photos. Below are some of the U.S. Government's official photos of the conditions at the facilities:
Some Members of Congress have been allowed in to inspect. Last year, they were refused entry and left standing at the gates. Think about it. Members of the United States Congress -- disallowed entry into a government facility, a facility accused of housing babies in cages. Finally, a couple weeks ago, several members of Congress toured two Border Patrol facilities and found horrible conditions, which were no doubt an improvement over the usual conditions, given the stature of the planned visitors. Please read that link. There is no way for me to summarize what the members of Congress experienced.
Breaking: just today Vice President Mike Pence visited a detention facility in Texas. It's the first time video cameras have been allowed in. Report on his visit starts at about 1:19.
Pence said later that conditions are "unacceptable" and asked Congress to pass a bill to send billions to Customs and Border Protection to stop the inflow. This makes me cheer and moan. Yes, he is right that it is unacceptable, and the right needs to hear that from him to believe it. But how about forcing the companies who already have our billions to account for the $750 per child per day and shape up? How about calling on Congress to pass some regulatory bills? How about organizing a task force to figure out real solutions right NOW for the people who are hurting?
Democratic presidential candidates are making it a core issue. Several candidates have visited facilities and have called for the outright abolishment of for-profit detention.
Last year, Mexico asked the United Nations to step in. And just last last week, the New York Times reported the the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile, was "shocked" at the reported conditions at the facilities holding children. Such shame upon us that the U.N. has to become involved in policing our treatment of human beings. Do we need other countries to step in and do the job we should do? If this were in another country, would the U.S. step in? Should we expect action from other countries?
These Kansas children sold lemonade as a humanitarian act to send money to the border to help their fellow children. Where is our government?
Controversy arose after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called the detention centers "concentration camps." The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum took offense to that charged label. Others disagree. Over 300 Holocaust scholars say that we should not stop comparing these facilities to concentration camps, writing in an open letter, "the very core of Holocaust education is to alert the public to dangerous developments that facilitate human rights violations and pain and suffering; pointing to similarities across time and space is essential for this task." I agree with them, and I agree with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg who wrote, "‘Never again’ means nothing if Holocaust analogies are always off limits." Former CIA Director Michael Hayden also asserted last month that there are similarities between the Nazi camps and SCROTUS's policies.
Many corporations are cutting ties with the prison corporations, including many major banks, Bank of America among them, and other businesses such as American Airlines. Some hotel chains, including Marriott and Choice, have stated that they will no longer act as back-up detention facilities. The city of Adelanto, CA cut ties -- and thus a layer of oversight -- with GEO Group and ICE. Other cities have similarly rocky relationships in their awkward go-between role.
Change may be coming. Some children have been moved from the abhorrent conditions at one Texas facility. But we must all act to change this system.
What we can do. Here is a great resource guide for what to do next. There are links there pointing us to action by protesting, donating, sharing information, boycotting, volunteering, writing to Congress, and supporting candidates who share your views. Please look at this excellent list, pick one – just one – and act. You have good ideas. Put them into motion.
We must not stand for these atrocities!
For you visual people, here are some good reports from the Southern Poverty Law Center:
And here is an interactive map to explore all the known Custom and Border Protection facilities in southern border states.
Resist! With all your might. #RESIST!
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