US migrant raids sparking jail boom

Donald Trump’s promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history has appalled some Americans. Others are cashing in on the boom in demand for private detention centres.

Federal agents detain a man after his court hearing in an immigration court in New York City. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on track to become the largest law enforcement agency in the US. Picture: Getty Images via AFP

Donald Trump’s promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history has appalled some Americans.

Others are cashing in on the boom in demand for private detention centres.

Migrants captured by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents need to be temporarily housed in places like the facility being readied in California City, prior to deportation.

“When you talk to the majority of residents here, they have a favourable perspective on it,” said Marquette Hawkins, mayor of the hardscrabble settlement of 15,000 people, 160km north of Los Angeles. “They look at the economic impact, right?”

California City is to be home to a sprawling detention centre that will be operated by Core­Civic, one of the largest companies in the sector. The company, which declined interview requests, says the facility would generate 500 jobs, and funnel $US2m in tax revenue to the city.

“Many of our residents have already been hired out there to work in that facility,” Mr Hawkins said. “Any revenue source that is going to assist the town in rebuilding itself, rebranding itself, is going to be seen as a plus.”

Mr Trump’s ramped-up immigration arrests, like those that provoked protests in Los Angeles, saw a record 60,000 people in detention in June, according to ICE figures.

Those same figures show the vast majority have no conviction, despite the President’s election campaign promises to go after hardened criminals.

More than 80 per cent of detainees are in facilities run by the private sector, according to the TRAC project at Syracuse University. And with Washington’s directive to triple the number of daily arrests – and $US45bn earmarked for new detention centres – the sector is looking at an unprecedented boom.

“Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now,” Damon Hininger, executive director of CoreCivic, said in a May call with investors.

When Mr Trump took office in January, some 107 centres were operating. The number now hovers around 200.

For Democratic politicians, this proliferation is intentional. “Private prison companies are profiting from human suffering, and Republicans are allowing them to get away with it,” congresswoman Norma Torres said outside a detention centre in southern California’s Adelanto.

At the start of the year, three people were detained there; there are now hundreds, each attracting a daily stipend of taxpayer cash for the operator.

Ms Torres was refused permission to visit the facility, run by the privately owned GEO Group, because she had not given seven days’ notice, she said.

“Denying members of congress access to private detention facilities like Adelanto isn’t just disrespectful, it is dangerous, it is illegal, and it is a desperate attempt to hide the abuse happening behind these walls,” she said.

AFP