In "Les Misarables," author Victor Hugo describes King Louis XIV of France’s desire to build up his country’s navy, but soon realizes he needs galleys to serve like modern day tugboats for his ships.
“But galleys could only be moved by galley-slaves,” wrote Hugo, “and there must be galley-slaves.”
As France would later see, people would be imprisoned for the smallest of infractions. The poor and street children were rounded up.
Build it and they will come. Not necessarily. Zealous enforcement was needed to fill the galleys.
A modern-day example is the private prison industry resulting from states outsourcing their prison system to private business. Aside from the abuses and wasteful spending, the industry’s craving for prisoners was satisfied with tougher sentences: three-strikes you’re out, Draconian sentencing guidelines, and abiding politicians who portray themselves as tough on crime while filling the pockets of one of their biggest donors. Full prisons means full pockets.
Robert Elliott Burns’ 1930s-era book "I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!" blew the cover off the deep South’s prison system and how it was used to profit private enterprise. It helped expose how blacks, street beggars, and others were rounded up for minuscule crimes only to fill the chain-gangs that were rented-out to businesses.
From state facilities, the private prison industry moved to federal prison facilities where the more lucrative practice of holding immigrants went into full swing. In the name of national security, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stepped up enforcement with immigration raids and continues to do so. The rationale for these raids leaves a bad taste for immigrant advocates as well as opponents. We must follow the money.
CorpWatch.com has written extensively on DHS’s increased enforcement and its direct relation to the immigration prison boom. Before Sept. 11, 2001, states began shying away from private prisons, reverting back to state-run facilities. The changes came when states realized that the “business does it better” approach was a fallacy. In fact, states were being sued for the illegal activities and abuses of the private prison industry.
After Sept. 11, DHS set its sights on immigrants who served as savior to the failing private prison industry. DHS began handing out sweetheart and no-bid contracts to the private prison industry to house immigrants.
The recent court settlement concerning the T. Don Hutto immigrant detention facility in Texas, where women and children were being held in Gulag conditions, is a revelation. However, private prison watchdogs were not surprised to find that the facility was run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
Deepa Fernandes exposed this company in her book "Targeted: National Security and the Business of Immigration." The CCA has had a history of abuses, and, interestingly, is one of the top lobbyers for the expansion of the private prison industry.
The conditions at the Bernalillo County's Regional Correctional Center in Albuquerque recently were found so appalling that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency pulled more than 600 detainees from the jail. The jail was run by the private Cornell Companies Inc. In 2003, DHS Inspector General’s report found abuses in prisons across nation prevalent.
Yes, these private prison contracts, like those given to companies building the walls on the border, continue to be doled out. Waste, abuses, and even deaths do not slow the creation of a racket. If you build it, ICE will make them come. Keeping prisons full is big business. As taxpayers’ wallets go flat, the wallets of others grow fat.
Raymundo Elí Rojas is the editor of Pluma Fronteriza and is executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Texas.
