The U.S. private immigration detention industry is enjoying a surprise boost from the Biden administration and expecting a windfall from Donald Trump despite being skewered by watchdogs and critics for running civil detention centers with some “horrific” and even lethal conditions. Trump’s plan to deport millions of people and expand private immigration prisons to hold them during that process is getting a multi-billion dollar head start from President Biden’s tack to the right on immigration, the Guardian reports. Despite widespread complaints about often horrific conditions in detention centers, the Biden administration has extended contracts with privately-run facilities under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), even as members of Congress, federal watchdogs and advocates pushed for their closure. “Congress allocates over $3 billion a year so the U.S. government can maintain the largest immigration detention apparatus in the world,” said Jesse Franzblau of the National Immigrant Justice Center. He said, “Private contractors receive billions a year in federal dollars to provide Ice detention, transport, surveillance and deportations. People in detention experience inhumane conditions and rights abuses that include medical neglect, preventable deaths, punitive use of solitary confinement, lack of due process, and discriminatory and racist treatment.”
The number of people detained in Ice jails has risen steadily under Biden, from 14,195 to almost 39,000, driven by the loosening of pandemic restrictions at the US-Mexico border. Some heavily-criticized facilities have had their contracts extended. Congress approved $3.4 billion for fiscal year 2024 for ICE to detain 41,500 people per day, an increase from $2.9 billion in 2023. This year so far, 10 people have died in ICE custody, nine of them in private sector centers. In 2023, 90% of people in ICE custody were held in privately-run facilities. The Biden administration “will hand off the same system that Democrats and Republicans have always created”, said Austin Kocher of Syracuse University, who studies the immigration enforcement system.
In September, the Department of Homeland Security’s office of inspector general released a report on 17 unannounced, spot inspections at ICE facilities across the country, which were carried out from 2020 to 2023. It found a shortage of medical care, violations of sanitation standards, improper care in solitary confinement and problems with staff responses to detainees’ needs.
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