Private Prisons: Big Beneficiaries of Immigrant Detentions, Big GOP Political Contributors

[leveymg]

By a 6-1 margin, huge private prison companies have favored the GOP in election cycles for decades. According to Open Secrets, the biggest private companies, Corrections Corporation of America and Wackenhut Corporation, have handed huge sums in campaign cash to the Republican Party and candidates. Republican lawmakers have returned the favor by pumping billions of dollars back to the industry.

This partisan pay-to-play arrangement is confirmed by a recent study of the immigration detention industry conducted by AP.

The Associated Press, seeking to tally the scope of the private facilities, add up their cost and the amounts the companies spend on lobbying and campaign donations, reviewed more than 10 years' worth of federal and state records. It found a complex, mutually beneficial and evidently legal relationship between those who make corrections and immigration policy and a few prison companies. Some of those companies were struggling to survive before toughened immigrant detention laws took effect.

A decade ago, just 10 percent of the beds in the nation's civil detention system were in private facilities with little federal oversight. Now, about half the beds are part of a sprawling, private system, largely controlled by just three companies: Corrections Corporation of America, The GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp.

And the growth is far from over, despite the sheer drop in illegal immigration in recent years:

* CCA was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2000 due to lawsuits, management problems and dwindling contracts. Last year, the company reaped $162 million in net income. Federal contracts made up 43 percent of its total revenues, in part thanks to rising immigrant detention.

* GEO (spun-off by Wackenhut in 2003), which cites the immigration agency as its largest client, saw its net income jump from $16.9 million to $78.6 million since 2000.

At the same time, the three businesses have spent at least $45 million combined on campaign donations and lobbyists
at the state and federal level in the last decade, the AP found. This seismic shift toward a privatized system happened quietly. While Congress' unsuccessful efforts to overhaul immigration laws drew headlines and sparked massive demonstrations, lawmakers' negotiations to boost detention dollars received far less attention. http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_21216589/immigrants-prove-big-business-prison-companies

[pampango]

1. And not coincidentally, all the state immigration laws have been enacted in republican-run states.

Not too surprising that private prisons contribute to the republican politicians who fill their prisons and make them lots of money.

Democratically-run states are more often passing versions of the dream act or otherwise showing some compassion and intelligence when it comes to immigration policy. Quite a difference.