After President Obama took office in 2009, Congress first introduced an immigration bed quota in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) appropriations process. The bed quota, or “bed mandate” as it is commonly known, ties DHS’ approximately $2 billion operations funding to maintaining a minimum number of immigration detention beds filled per day. The quota was set at 33,400 for the first year of implementation, before increasing to 34,000 in subsequent years. These beds are set in immigration detention facilities, 200 of which are under contract with private prison companies and local and county jails. As the only mandate of its kind on a law-enforcement agency in the United States, the bed mandate has been subject to public scrutiny, mostly arising from its unclear legislative history and not-so-implicit ties to private prison corporations, including the likes of GEO Group and CoreCivic. 

This piece will first illustrate the significant role that private prison corporations have played in shaping the bed mandate, which primarily serves their own interests—primarily generating profits—over the interests of immigration detainees, who are the most vulnerable in this system. It will then dive into the history of immigration detention and its corporate influence in the United States, including the legislative developments after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Lastly, it will examine conditions within immigration detention facilities, detailed through an interview with Phil Torrey, Director of the Crimmigration Clinic at Harvard Law School. These developments shaped the dominant narrative advocating for the bed mandate as perpetuated by Congressional leaders in hearings prior to the adoption of DHS’ appropriations in 2009.

When the bed mandate was first introduced in 2009 as part of a DHS Appropriations bill, Congress presented its goals as: (1) Securing our borders and enforcing immigration laws; (2) Protecting the American people from terrorist threats and other vulnerabilities; (3) Preparing and  responding to all hazards, including natural disasters; (4) Supporting our State, local, tribal and private sector partners in homeland security with resources and immigration; and (5) giving DHS the management tools it needs to succeed. However, the bed mandate also came during the 2007-2008 Recession, a time when jobs were in high demand and detaining non-citizens could provide  for such jobs. Increasing bed space became a way of increasing jobs for the rest of the country while also achieving the stated goals of the DHS bill outlined above.

“Even though it’s a civil immigration detention center, it’s run more like a prison […] We get screamed at, we get yelled at, we get threats…if you don’t listen, you’ll go to the hole.” 

The bed mandate’s foundation extends past the 2010 DHS Appropriations bill (passed in 2009) and into the late 20th century. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, many Central Americans fled their home countries due to increasing human rights violations and political persecution, often perpetuated by their countries’ governments. Conditions in El Salvador, for example, led to more than 20,000 requests for political asylum in 1983. Though, immigration officials at the time often refused to recognize these immigrants’ refugee status, instead classifying them as “economic migrants fleeing poverty” to preserve the United States’ relationship with the government in El Salvador. For migrants awaiting adjudication of their refugee status, only those who could afford bond (totaling $2,500 in 1983) were released from immigration detention. And as more migrants escaped the conditions in their countries for a chance at asylum in the United States, immigration detention facilities quickly filled, requiring more bed space. 

Conveniently, the private prison industry at the time was suffering from bad press (particularly lawsuits brought by criminal detainees for poor living conditions in private prisons) and dipping stock prices (losing 93 percent of its $40-a-share value by 2000), and it sought a new market for privatization. Immigration detention was that new market, and these facilities were easier and cheaper to maintain than criminal detention facilities—considering immigrants are not required to receive costly services such as educational programing and mental health Private prison corporations, like GEO Group and CoreCivic, were quick to enter the immigration detention market, and by 1986, 25 percent of detention facilities were privately run. By 2018, the number increased to 62 percent. Because immigration detention is categorized as civil, these facilities are not required to offer the same services that are mandatory in criminal detention facilities, including rehabilitative programming, educational programming, and mental  health care.

However, the civil detention categorization is a legal fiction, considering the prison-like  conditions immigrant detainees experience within facilities, including those run by private prison corporations. Solomon, an immigrant detained for 5 months at two different detention facilities—South Texas Detention Complex (GEO) and Steward Detention Center (CoreCivic)— detailed his experiences in a 2015 Grassroots Leadership report. Facing political persecution and  imprisonment in Ethiopia, Solomon fled to the United States in 2014. Though, while in immigration detention, the conditions he faced were similar, and in some instances worse, than  those he experienced while in an Ethiopian prison. At the South Texas Detention Complex,  Solomon felt like a criminal when a guard would walk behind him whenever he was transferred  between different holding areas. He said, “They treat you like a criminal […] Even in my  country when I go to prison, I’m never cuffed like that.” After 5 months and 15 days in  immigration detention, Solomon won his asylum case.  

Starting in March 2011, Muhammad Nazry Mustakim (Naz), a permanent resident/green  card holder, spent 10 months in the South Texas Detention Complex. He was placed in removal accepted a plea bargain for 10 years of probation without knowing it would result in immigration consequences (the next section will  further detail the law regulating mandatory detention of convicted immigrants).

While in  detention, he felt disoriented and rarely received appropriate medical care. In one instance, he  had to put in a request for a band-aid for an open wound, and the processing for such requests  takes at least two days. “Even though it’s a civil immigration detention center, it’s run more like  a prison […] We get screamed at, we get yelled at, we get threats…if you don’t listen, you’ll go  to the hole.” He was finally released from detention in February 2012.

Courtesy of: Khalil Bendib

As the stories above illustrate, private prison industries run civil immigration detention  facilities much like criminal detention facilities. Lacking adequate protections and due process  rights, detained immigrants are vulnerable to poor conditions, conditions which are permitted  under the color of the law in the United States and even expanded through acts like the bed mandate.

“The main driver of new beds at the federal level continues to be the detention and  incarceration of [immigrants].”

~GEO Group CEO George Zoley (2009, the same year  the bed mandate was passed) 

Private prison corporations vastly profit from the management of immigration  populations, and as such, they are incentivized to participate in the creation of anti-immigrant  policies which “encourage[d] the disappearance of immigrant bodies from the public space” and  into detention facilities. Corporations like GEO Group and CoreCivic influence policy  development and immigration reform, as explicitly seen in the history behind legislation like the  Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996, Intelligence  Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004, and ultimately the DHS Appropriations  behind the initial bed mandate of 2009.  

Though, to better understand how private prison corporations came into the market of  managing immigrant bodies, we must first discuss the summary meta-script of policymaking— markets good; regulation bad—and how it pervades the operations of administrative agencies.  First introduced by the Chicago School of economic thought in the mid-twentieth century, the  summary meta-script of policymaking draws the conclusion that the best way to control the  economy is through minimal government interference and subsequently, through the  privatization of traditionally public sectors.  

As Milton Friedman previously claimed, regulation exists only to serve the interests of  regulators and not the public.20 Regulatory institutions, including administrative agencies like the  Department of Homeland Security (DHS), are thus not protecting the public from such interests,  in turn increasing the government’s harmful power. Therefore, the logic of the meta-script  follows that to best serve the interests of the public, power should be removed from the  government and placed into the hands of the free market, ultimately leading to the privatization  of public sectors and inevitability, the rise of corporate power. 

This narrative of immigration detention is evident in the promotional material of  CoreCivic. In a published flyer titled, “Myth vs. Fact: CoreCivic’s Valued but Limited Role in  the Immigration System,” CoreCivic claims the following:  

Migrant flows can fluctuate by hundreds of thousands of people from one year to the  next. Newly elected leaders can and do abruptly change immigration policies. Private  contractors are an important option for the government to ensure that taxpayers aren’t  left holding the bag with billions of dollars in infrastructure and tens of thousands of  federal employees when migrant flows and policies change. 

Though DHS regulators and immigration officials blame increasing detention rates on  increased undocumented immigration, we can quickly dismiss this claim when looking at  immigration data: the average annual undocumented population growth dropped from 15 percent  at the turn of the century to 4 percent between 2000 and 2010. Another reason that legislators  point to—immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than nonimmigrants—is also false.  Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, and cities with higher  percentages of immigrants have lower crime rates. Thus, the official logic and reasoning  behind immigration detention falls short.  

Regulatory Capture of DHS 

Instead, a hidden force is behind restrictive immigration legislation is regulatory capture.  Simply put, this phenomenon occurs when private corporations influence policymaking, either  through lobbying politicians, applying monetary pressure, or other means within their power. In  this instance, DHS is a captured agency over which private prison corporations, through  lobbying efforts, exert their power to manifest their interests of increasing profits in the  immigration detention industry.  

A 2018 study looking into the dynamics of detention, deportation, and the  criminalization of immigrants finds a correlation between corporate interests and the growth of  immigration detention, evidence of how regulatory capture is working in this area. 

Figure from research study

Analyzing the  federal lobbying expenditures of CoreCivic and GEO Group to agencies like DHS from 1995 to  2013, this study finds that these expenses are statistically correlated with the ratio of detained  immigrants (see figure below). The enactment of IIRIRA also has a statistically significant  relationship with increased detention, suggesting it is “so consequential in the detention of  immigrants that it decreased the effects of other restrictive policies at the national level.” Further evidence of regulatory capture is the revolving door between DHS and private  corporations. Jule M. Wood, who served as the Head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement  (ICE) under DHS from 2006 until 2008, is now a Director on the Board for GEO Group.  

Corporate Responsibility 

As a particularly vulnerable group, immigrants are voiceless in the creation of  immigration law. As corporate influence permeates the regulatory structure of immigration  detention, important and often ethical questions arise about corporate responsibility. Who is  responsible for the harms committed against detainees? Is the regulatory body (DHS)  responsible? Or is the private corporation they contracted these services out to (GEO Group,  CoreCivic, etc.) responsible? The answer to this question depends on the theories of corporate  responsibility we correspond to; although, the most permeated model—the property model— absolves corporations from such responsibility over harms so long as they were committed in  pursuit of profits.  

The property model is best illustrated through Friedman (as introduced above) and his  assertion that corporations are only responsible for their shareholders and maximizing profits.  Some may refer to this phenomenon as the macro-level script of corporate law: profit maximization is good and social responsibility is bad. Here, corporate actors do not owe any  social responsibilities to non-shareholders; instead, they assume that other actors and areas of the  law are more apt to resolve social issues. It is through this model that private prison corporations  justify and legitimize their involvement in immigration detention and the physical, social, and  mental harms that occur within privately-run facilities. GEO Group and CoreCivic only owe  duties to their shareholders and capital growth, even at the cost of human suffering.  

This paradox—that regulation is bad and markets are  good while profit maximization is good and social responsibility is bad—leaves immigrants in an  incredibly vulnerable position as neither regulatory bodies nor corporate actors take responsibility of detention abuses.

Further, private prison corporations may even discharge responsibilities to the regulatory  agencies they contract with, despite claiming these same agencies perpetuate harm to the public  under the meta-script of corporate law. This paradox—that regulation is bad and markets are  good while profit maximization is good and social responsibility is bad—leaves immigrants in an  incredibly vulnerable position as neither regulatory bodies nor corporate actors take responsibility of detention abuses. Unable to challenge the corporate and regulatory power that  unjustly detains them, immigrants are left to suffer the effects of privatization, pervasive harms that have lasting effects beyond detention.  

Moving from the “War on Drugs” (from which the private prison industry emerged) to  the “War on Terror,” corporate actors took advantage of strict and xenophobic legislation to  expand their power and profits.25 Following the tragic events of 9/11, these actors gained interest  in detaining immigrants, which, as Anita Sinha details in her article, Arbitrary Detention: The  Immigration Detention Quota, “opened the door for the private prison industry to see its next  market share in the immigration detention business.” This renewed interest in immigration  detention is evident in their rapidly increasing lobbying expenditures throughout the early 2000s,  as seen in the figure above. 

In the late twentieth century, private prison corporations primarily focused on privatizing  state prisons. Through the “War on Drugs” and its strict drug enforcement policies throughout  the United States, CoreCivic and GEO Group profited from the mass incarceration and  commodification of drug offenders. Though, as Lauren-Brook Eisen details in her book, Inside  Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration, such profits were  short-lived. Starting in the 1990s, CoreCivic and GEO Group suffered significant losses from  overbuilding and underfilling state facilities, as well as from bad publicity following a string of prison escapes and riots. Additionally, several inmates filed lawsuits against these corporations  for poor conditions and abuses within these facilities, leading to costly litigation and settlement  amounts that contributed to dips in stock prices and for CoreCivic, brought it to the brink of  bankruptcy. As states like California, Georgia, and Louisiana responded by pulling their  contracts with private prison corporations to run state facilities, corporations turned to a new  market: federal prisons.  

Following the enactment of IIRIRA in 1996, the federal government experienced a rapid  increase in demand for immigration detention. The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) sought  contracts with companies willing to provide low-security detention beds in what they called “criminal alien requirements” (CAR) prisons.27 By 2000, BOP had awarded four contracts to  CoreCivic: initially, two contracts were signed to manage 7,500 CAR beds, but then soon after,  BOP awarded two additional contracts for CoreCivic to manage two detention centers in  California (with one having the capacity of 2,300 CAR beds).28 Seeing how lucrative  immigration detention could be, corporations shifted their focus to expanding immigration  detention, particularly after the events of 9/11 led to the “War on Terror.” Steve Logan, CEO of Cornell Companies (later acquired by GEO Group) explains:

It’s clear that since September 11 there’s a heightened focus on detention, both on the borders and in the U.S. What we are seeing is an increased scrutiny of . . . tightening up the borders. . . . So I would say the events of 9/11 . . . um . . . let me back up. The federal business is the best business for us. It’s the most consistent business for us—and the events of September 11 [are] increasing that level of business. 

After 9/11, the federal government dissolved the Immigration and Naturalization Service  to form the Department of Homeland Security, thus merging interests of immigration policy with  concerns of national security. This convergence is ever so evident in the passage of the  Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) in 2004 and later, the 2010 DHS  Appropriations Bill. 

By and large, private prison industry has been very active in supporting and pursuing  immigration policies that increase the use of detention as a mode of immigration  enforcement. That has really been the case, even before the bed mandate.

~ Phil Torrey

Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act  

As Friedman, and later President Bush believed, markets serve as solutions to the  problems of regulation. In a 2002 tribute to Friedman, President Bush praised Friedman for  having “creatively applied the power of freedom to the problems of our own country […],  shaping policies ranging from ‘national security’ to ‘educational reform.’” The idea of using  markets to solve issues of national security is prominent in the solutions put forth in the context  of immigration, particularly after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Though, the market  solution to immigration detention capacity—the privatization of detention facilities—has its  roots in the 1990s and the expansion of mandatory detention through the Illegal Immigration  Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). 

IIRIRA expanded the definition of what is known as an “aggravated felony,”  exponentially increasing the use of mandatory detention to detain criminal immigrants and  limiting opportunities for judicial review and/or bond. Though the term “aggravated felony”  sounds ominous, IIRIRA defines such crimes rather broadly, including many nonviolent and minor offenses like simple battery, theft, filing a false tax return, and failing to appear in court. An immigrant convicted of such a crime becomes immediately deportable, even if they are  lawfully present within the United States, and is subject to mandatory immigration detention  following release from criminal custody. Further, the “aggravated felony” mark on their record  bars them from seeking various forms of immigration relief, including cancellation of removal,  waivers of inadmissibility, and asylum.

Following the implementation of IIRIRA, rates of immigration detention steadily  increased through the early twenty-first century. While immigration detention centers had the  capacity to detain just over 4,000 in 1980, the number of beds reached 6,785 by 1994, and  33,400 by 2009 (particularly at the implementation of the bed mandate, discussed below). Humiliating conditions within detention facilities continued, as detailed in Jama et al v.  U.S.I.N.S. (1998), a lawsuit brought forth by detainees against Correctional Services Corporation  (formerly Esmor Correctional Services Inc.). In Jama, detainees alleged in their amended  complaint that conditions within their privately run detention facility (located in Elizabeth, New  Jersey) were “subhuman”:  

Every moment of [detainees’] detention was filled with abuse. They could not escape  from these abuses even in their dreams, as they were not permitted to sleep [as] bright  lights shone on them 24 hours a day, and guards woke them up just to taunt them. 

Within this facility, twenty to forty detainees were placed into each room. There was no  privacy, and sexual abuse and humiliation were rampant in cells, as graphically detailed below:  

When women detainees showered [in their shared room], guards made crude sexual  comments about their bodies. […] The guards woke [detainees] before sunrise and  forced them to stand facing a wall, with their legs spread, for up to an hour at a time.  Upon searching male [detainees’] genital areas, the guards forcefully yanked their  genitals causing severe pain. There was inappropriate touching of both male and female  [detainees]. […] Moreover, female detainees were forced to choose between being sexually assaulted and contacting their lawyers as guards premised using the telephones  on submitting to their unwanted sexual advances. 

Detainees within this facility were also subject to racism and denied access to legal  representation, often losing their chance to seek asylum as a result.  

In addition to beating them, they yelled racial and ethnic epithets at them such as  “African Monkeys” from the “jungle.”  

[G]uards, without any justification, often would refuse to allow plaintiffs to use the  telephone to discuss their asylum cases with their counsel. Additionally, defendants  continuously failed to transport plaintiffs promptly to their asylum hearings. As a result,  plaintiffs often missed important asylum meetings (which resulted in a postponement of  their asylum hearings) and prolonged their detention at Esmor. 

IIRIRA was only the first sign of incoming restrictive litigation expanding immigration  detention. Following the events of 9/11, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act  of 2004 passed soon after.  

Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act 

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) directed DHS to  increase “the number of beds available for immigration detention” and required the “expansion  of immigration detention bed capacity be contingent on the ‘availability of appropriated  funds.’” Looking at the figure above, it is hard to ignore the spike in CoreCivic (formerly  CCA) and GEO Group’s lobbying expenditures during the time of IRTPA’s passage.  Furthermore, CoreCivic’s annual report (2004) praised the passage of IRTPA as follows:  

The Intelligence Reform Bill authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to, subject  to appropriations, hire a total of 2,000 new border patrol agents over each of the next  five years and increase the total available detention beds by 40,000 over the next five  years. We believe these initiatives could lead to meaningful growth to the private  corrections industry in general, and to our company in particular. We believe these initiatives could lead to meaningful growth to the private  corrections industry in general, and to our company in particular.  

Upon the enactment of IRTPA, President George W. Bush ended the controversial “catch  and release” policy which expedited deportations without formal hearings and removed the need  for detention. Though the policy received criticism for its mass prosecutions without due process  protections, it eliminated the need for immigration detention. After its enforcement stopped in  2006, the subsequent regime of immigration detention quickly took its place as the Bush  administration ramped up its contracts with private prison corporations and expanded  immigration detention to record-setting levels. Through federal contracts, CoreCivic and GEO  Group built new detention facilities around the country. For example, CoreCivic’s T. Don Hutto  Family Detention Center (Hutto) near Austin, Texas opened its doors to immigrant detainees,  mostly families, in 2006 under a $2.8 million-per-month federal contract.

We believe these initiatives could lead to meaningful growth to the private  corrections industry in general, and to our company in particular.  

Soon after, however, evidence of poor conditions within Hutto came to light in a  settlement reached between the ACLU and DHS. The ACLU initially filed on behalf of twenty six immigrant children, between the ages of 1 and 17, who were detained in Hutto with their  parents awaiting asylum proceedings. In Hutto, children were often separated from their parents  during prison-like headcounts, forced to wear prison garb, and received only an hour of  educational instruction a day. Through the landmark settlement, DHS officials must expand  educational programming, ensure access to full-time pediatricians, and eliminate the headcount  system, among other requirements. Though, the damage to children detained in Hutto is long lasting, as evident in a statement made by Andrea Restrepo (then 12 years old at the time of her  release post-settlement):

I feel much better, I feel tranquil, I can do things now I couldn’t do there […] I am trying  to forget everything about Hutto. I feel free. It was a nightmare.

Andrea spent almost a year in a small Hutto cell with her mother and younger sister.  Other stories like Andrea’s came out of Hutto, as illustrated in children’s drawings from  detention below.

While a substantial portion of our cost structure is fixed, a substantial portion of our  revenues is generated under facility management contracts that specify per diem  payments based upon occupancy. Under a per diem rate structure, a decrease in our  occupancy rates could cause a decrease in revenue and profitability.

~CoreCivic’s  Annual Letter to Shareholders (2009) 

Following the passage of IRTPA, which served only as a directive to make beds  available, the United States fell into the Great Recession of 2007-2008, in which millions of jobs  were lost. Seeing this as an opportunity to maximize profits, private prison corporations  increased lobbying efforts to expand immigration detention, framing their actions as creating  more jobs for Americans suffering from repercussions of the Recession. Some members of  Congress, including Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), called for mandating a quota of beds to be filled  each day. Though, to no surprise, Sessions has profited from lobbying efforts on behalf of private  prison corporations.  

Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Credit: Ruth Talbot/NPR,
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/01/982815269/beyond-the-border-fewer-immigrants-being-locked-
up-but-ice-still-pays-for-empty-

By 2009, the DHS Appropriations Bill for FY 2010 included the first bed mandate,  requiring DHS to fill 33,400 detention beds per day. Despite initial attempts by the Obama  Administration to decrease the bed mandate quota, notably an attempt in 2012 to reduce the  number to 32,800, efforts have failed, and the bed mandate is still in place today. When the  Justice Department under Obama published a memo in 2016 stating it would heavily restrict government contracts with private prison corporations, GEO Group and CoreCivic responded by  donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to pro-Trump Super PAC, Rebuilding America Now.  Under the Trump Administration, the average daily population in ICE detention facilities peaked  at 50,165. His administration also signed contracts to expand the number privately-run facilities, with GEO Group leading with twenty-two total facilities (five opened under the Trump  Administration) and CoreCivic close behind at nineteen total facilities (five opened under  Trump).  

Source: USA Today analysis of ICE data as of Nov. 5, 2019

Though, as the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, daily detention notably dropped in  2020 to 33,724 (yet it was still higher than the mandate of 33,400). As the Biden Administration  ramps up its immigration enforcement agenda, it recently proposed to decrease the bed mandate  by 9,000 beds. On March 25, 2022, the Administration announced it was reducing its detention  capacity by more than 25 percent, requesting the bed mandate to be 25,000 for the next fiscal  year. Additionally, it reduced capacity in specific facilities with notoriously poor detention  conditions, such as the Winn Correctional Center (the subject of a 2021 Buzzfeed investigative  report detailing inadequate health treatment and bug infestations). Advocates may see this as a  step in the right direction, yet more needs to be done to prevent the systemic and widespread  abuses occurring in privately-run detention facilities, not just a targeted few.

As privately-run facilities overtake immigration detention, immigrants increasingly suffer  from physical and psychological abuses, and many are forced into slave-like labor conditions for  incredibly low wages. Corruption in contracting and inspection practices are also rampant, often  left unchecked as ICE fails to hold private prison contractors accountable. 

Phil Torrey, the Director of the Crimmigration Clinic at Harvard Law School, specializes  in defending immigrants’ rights in detention and fighting for their release from custody. His  experience has led him to believe that private prison corporations, in their pursuit to “increase  margins for their shareholders,” have engaged in cost-cutting measures that “result in really  horrible detention conditions.”His clients’ stories are shocking to say the least, and they shed  light on the “opaque private prison industry,” who are not subject to government disclosure and  FOIA requests for information. Recently, he had a client in a private facility who contracted  COVID-19 from exposure in a “makeshift medical care area in which people were getting  infected from each other.” Another COVID-era client needed to be isolated due to a preexisting  medical issue, and “they put him in the ‘box,’ a room with plexiglass […] and the walls were  covered in feces. He had to clean it up himself with gloves and a rag.”

In  the average private facility, it takes a detainee 4 days of week to afford a tube of toothpaste.

Phil also highlights other issues that arise in immigration detention, such as forced labor.  A detainee he represented, who was forced to clean a facility, complained about a utility closet in  which corrections officers were using the sink as a toilet. Detainees had to go into that closet and  use that sink, and some even cooked meals in it. To add further insult to injury, working  detainees earn “pennies on the dollar for [completing tasks like] cleaning, food services and  laundry,” despite having to pay for hygiene products and other essentials at the commissary. In  the average private facility, it takes a detainee 4 days of week to afford a tube of toothpaste.

A recent case, Gonzales v. CoreCivic (2021), provides further context to forced labor, or  as CoreCivic calls it, “voluntary” work programs. Martha Gonzalez, a detainee at a CoreCivic  immigration center, alleged the following:  

CoreCivic forced her to clean the detention facilities, cook meals for company events,  engage in clerical work, provide barber services for fellow detainees, maintain  landscaping, and other labors. And if she refused, the company would impost more  severe living conditions, including solitary confinement, physical restraints, and  deprivation of basic human needs such as personal hygiene products.

As evident through stories like the ones above, abuses within private immigration  detention facilities continue into the present, and without accountability, private prison  corporations are disincentivized from taking responsibility and improving conditions.  

Theories of corporate law tell us that corporations should focus solely on maximizing  profits, leaving social responsibility for other areas of the law to care about. Private prison  corporations adopted this narrative, perpetuating harms against detainees in privately-run  immigration detention facilities while justifying their actions as profitable and serving  shareholder interests. Though, are CoreCivic and GEO Group actually serving shareholder  interests?  

In recent years, shareholder activists—people who attempt to use their rights as  shareholders to bring about change within corporations—have bought shares in CoreCivic and  GEO Group to hold them accountable for social responsibilities, like the well-being of  immigrants in detention. One particular shareholder group, called the Interfaith Center on  Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), has advocated on behalf of immigrants since 2013, when it  pushed GEO Group to develop its first human rights policy. At the company’s annual 2019  meeting, ICCR received 88 percent of shareholder support on a resolution calling for details  regarding how the implementation of GEO’s human rights policy demonstrates respect for  detainees “in light of serious allegations of human rights abuses.” The resolution states:  

The GEO Group (“GEO”) represents itself as “the world’s leading provider of  correctional, detention, and community reentry services” and promotes itself as having  “always been committed to protecting human rights.” However, the company faces  increasing scrutiny and expectations from investors and clients regarding its human  rights performance. 

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General in October 2018  reported “serious issues relating to safety, detainee rights, and medical care” at a GEO owned and operated immigration detention center in Adelanto, California. Inspectors  found nooses made from twisted bed sheets in 15 of 20 cells inspected, despite 1 suicide  and 7 attempts at the facility last year. In addition, during their visit officials found that  all 14 detainees in administrative segregation had been placed inappropriately. 

In response to shareholder activism, eight major banks (holding 87.4 percent of all known  financing for private prisons) have promised to end their future financing relationships with  CoreCivic and GEO Group. Further, following GEO Group’s poor response to COVID-19  infections in detention facilities, investors filed a federal securities class action complaint.  Investors claimed GEO Group misled them and failed to disclose their ineffective COVID-19  response procedures, how those procedures posed significant health risks to detainees, and how  the company left itself and its investors vulnerable to significant financial and reputational harm.  Soon after the complaint reached the public, GEO Group’s share price fell by 7 percent, and  CoreCivic announced it was reevaluating its corporate structure. 

Shareholders hold it within their power to influence the actions of corporations, and as  such, they should pay attention to how their investments fund the detention of immigrants in  inhumane conditions. Corporate executives ignore moral considerations, and it is only when they  are forced to care—through class action suits and bank divestments—that conditions within  immigration detention facilities are likely to improve.

From The [F]law:

• Connie Cheng, From Walls to Shackles: The Big Business of Electronically Monitoring Immigrants
  
• Tala Alfoqaha, Marketplace of Violence: Bidding for Brutality Among Minnesota’s Police
• Adriel Williams, The Costs of Carceral Communications: How a Prison Telecommunications Company Exploits Incarcerated People and Their Loved Ones
• Anna Bower, Shots Fired, and Profited On: Inside the Campaign against “ShotSpotter” in Chicago

From The Systemic Justice Journal:

• Austin Nielsen-Reagan, The Profitability of Inhumanity: How Corporate Power Gives Rise to Forced Labor in Privatized Immigration Detention
• Adira Levine, Can’t Get Back Up: The Growth and Toll of Private Probation