Two-Thirds of Voters Want to Stop the Expansion of For-Profit Immigrant Detention
A recent poll commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union and YouGov found that 68 percent of voters want the federal government to stop pursuing contracts with for-profit prison corporations to open private immigrant detention centers. Americans have become more aware of the inhumane conditions and twisted business model of the private prison industry, and want President Biden to follow through on his promise to “.”
President Biden has repeatedly expressed strong and deep-seated opposition to the use of for-profit prisons to detain immigrants and called for their closure. In April 2021, the president immigrant rights activists in Georgia that “there should be no private prisons, period, none, period. Private detention centers, they should not exist, and we are working to close all of them.”
Despite having a popular mandate to end the practice, the Biden administration has continued to go against its own stated policy and values — along with the wishes of the majority of Americans — by seeking out new contracts with private prison companies to detain immigrants throughout the country.
During his successful campaign, Biden’s “” included this unequivocal pledge: “End for-profit detention centers. No business should profit from the suffering of desperate people fleeing violence.”
Similarly, Biden’s “” stated that he will “end the federal government’s use of private prisons” and “make clear that the federal government should not use private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants.”
This pledge has broad support from the American people, and they want the president to follow through.
Shortly after his inauguration, the president issued an executive order to phase out its contracts with private prison companies, but the order did not apply to private immigrant detention facilities, where nearly 80 percent of detained immigrants are held, often in brutal conditions.
This loophole gave private prison corporations an to land new contracts and stay in the business of incarcerating people. For-profit companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group have worked to turn facilities whose federal contracts to imprison people for the Department of Justice ended under the executive order into immigrant detention facilities. That way, they can make new lucrative contracts that profit off human misery.
While Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas his intention to shut down inhumane facilities in spring 2021, DHS is now moving to award new contracts to private prison companies.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has already started contracting with one private facility in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania and may soon enter contracts with for-profit, private prisons in Leavenworth, Kansas and Mason, Tennessee. These locations, as is too often the case in immigrant detention, have troubling records of abusive conditions and are located far away from communities with immigration attorneys, making it difficult for people to pursue their cases.
There are even that ICE may expand a private immigrant detention center run by the for-profit GEO Group in Georgia, the very state where the president promised voters that he planned to close all private detention centers.
Following a partly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people held in immigrant detention has started to swell once again, since Biden took office. Now, as cases of the omicron variant of COVID-19 surge, the need to fulfill the president’s repeated pledge to end for-profit immigrant detention has become even more urgent. The administration should be releasing people from detention as a public health measure, but so far has not announced its intention to do so in any systematic way. Meanwhile, people aren’t receiving booster shots and are typically confined to tight, crowded spaces where it is , .
The administration should listen to the voters — and President Biden — and end its misguided pursuit of new detention contracts with for-profit, private prison corporations.
It’s time to close private prisons and shut down the immigrant detention machine notorious for COVID-19 surges, physical brutality, sexual abuse, racist mistreatment, and denials of due process, not expand it.
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News & CommentaryDec 2024
Civil Liberties
We Need to Know More About State Supreme Court CasesWe Need to Know More About State Supreme Court Cases
State Supreme Courts interpret laws that impact some of the most intimate parts of our lives. Communities have a right to know what’s on the docket. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
Civil Liberties
New ACLU Report Reveals Most State Supreme Courts Fail to Meet Key Transparency MeasuresNew ACLU Report Reveals Most State Supreme Courts Fail to Meet Key Transparency Measures
NEW YORK — Nearly half of all state supreme courts across the country fail to regularly post new cases they are considering, with only six meeting four key transparency measures already implemented by the U.S. Supreme Court, according to a new report published today by the American Civil Liberties Union. The report identifies significant steps that state supreme courts should take to inform the public about their cases, which have only grown in importance as the federal judiciary has become more hostile to protecting core rights and advocates have turned to state protections and state court litigation in response. Based on an analysis of the practices and policies of the highest courts in each state, including D.C., the report “Scorecard for State Supreme Court Transparency: How Does Your State Stack Up?” ranks each state supreme court in five tiers based on compliance with four key transparency measures. These measures include posting new cases online in a timely manner, providing timely information about legal issues presented by cases, making dockets accessible and free for the public, and making merits briefing accessible and free for the public. “State courts regularly hear — and are the final word on — cases affecting abortion rights, voting rights, criminal justice reform, and more. Yet, in many instances, the highest state courts do not provide meaningful public access to information about cases affecting the rights and liberties of millions of people. We urge state supreme courts to bring more transparency to the critical work they do,” said Julie Murray, co-director of the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative. “In the face of a federal judiciary increasingly unwilling to protect core rights and an incoming administration that threatens to exacerbate that problem, state courts are an important defense for our liberty. They should be leaders in transparency, too,” said Bridget Lavender, Skadden Fellow with the Initiative. The report emphasizes that state courts “play an outsized role” in many parts of the law, but their ability to “guard our liberties depends in significant part on whether those courts adopt transparent processes.” It further highlights that state supreme courts have led the way on enormously consequential decisions in recent years. In particular, some state supreme courts have recognized the right of same sex couples to marry, and did so long before federal courts. They have also declared the death penalty unconstitutional under state law despite contrary federal law, protected access to reproductive health care as a right even as that right was being stripped away at the federal level, and provided more robust protection to people subject to unreasonable searches and seizures. The report urges state supreme courts to take action to improve their transparency practices, taking notes from the courts that have already implemented these measures. It notes that regularly posting new cases and the issues they represent, and providing timely access to dockets and merits briefing allows the public, the press, and the legal community to track cases as they unfold, identify cases with statewide consequences, and understand what’s at stake. -
Press ReleaseNov 2024
National Security
+2 Issues
ACLU Urges House to Kill Bill that Could Give Trump Admin Power to Crush Dissent and Go After Political EnemiesACLU Urges House to Kill Bill that Could Give Trump Admin Power to Crush Dissent and Go After Political Enemies
WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union strongly urges the House of Representatives to vote NO on H.R. 9495, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, which would grant Donald Trump and his handpicked secretary of the Treasury power to investigate and effectively shut down any tax-exempt organization — including news outlets, universities, and civil society groups — by stripping them of tax-exempt status based on an unilateral accusation of wrongdoing. “Passing this bill would hand the incoming Trump administration a dangerous new tool it could use to stifle free speech, target political opponents, and punish disfavored groups,” said Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU. “The freedom to dissent without fear of government retribution is a vital part of any well-functioning democracy, which is why Congress must block H.R. 9495 before it’s too late.” While there is a 90-day “cure” period in which a designated nonprofit can mount a defense, it is a mere illusion of due process. The government may deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations. This means that a nonprofit could be left entirely in the dark about what conduct the government believes qualifies as "support," making it virtually impossible to clear its name. Last month, the ACLU and a diverse array of over 130 other tax-exempt organizations — including human rights, reproductive health, and immigrants’ rights groups — wrote to Congress urging them to vote no. The letter also explains that the groups do not oppose the provisions in H.R. 9495 that relate to preventing the IRS from imposing fines and penalties on hostages while they are held abroad. Indeed, these provisions have already passed the Senate on their own, and if the House of Representatives were to pass a version of this bill that did not include the text of H.R. 6408, it could be sent immediately to President Biden for his signature. -
News & CommentaryNov 2024
Civil Liberties
Donald Trump Will Return to the White House in January. The ACLU is Ready.Donald Trump Will Return to the White House in January. The ACLU is Ready.
Starting in 2016, the ACLU filed more than 400 legal actions against Trump and his administration. As Trump returns to the White House, we’re ready to return to the courts and Congress to fight for our civil liberties.