ACLU Urges Biden Administration to Cut Ties with Private Prison Operation in Downtown San Diego
City of McFarland in Kern County Figures into For-Profit Operator GEO’s Scheme to Circumvent Biden’s Executive Order to End Renewals of Contracts
SAN DIEGO — Today, the ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties (ACLUF-SDIC), ACLU Foundation of Southern California and ACLU Foundation of Northern California sent a letter to the Biden administration demanding that it close the Western Region Detention Facility – a privately run, 770-bed federal detention facility in downtown San Diego.
As part of an effort to reduce mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color, one of President Biden’s first official acts was to issue an forbidding the Department of Justice’s renewal of contracts with private companies running federal detention facilities. In his Jan. 25 order, the president recognized the importance of reducing “profit-based incentives to incarcerate” people.
The Western Region Detention Facility is operated by GEO Group Inc., a Florida-based private prison company. The facility holds people in U.S. Marshals Service custody who are charged with committing federal offenses. GEO’s contract was set to expire on Sept. 30, 2021. However, the company announced today that it received a six-month contract extension. The company appears to be scheming to maintain its operations and profits by entering into an , a town with less than 12,500 residents and more than 250 miles north of San Diego.
If the scheme is successful, McFarland will contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to detain people in the Marshals’ custody, and then McFarland will subcontract the work to GEO in return for $500,000 from the company. This will allow GEO to continue operating the Western Region Detention Facility.
This is the latest of similar pass-through schemes put up by a private prison corporation to skirt President Biden’s executive order. Another private prison company, .
“Pre-trial incarceration flips the presumption of innocence on its head by punishing people before they’ve had their cases adjudicated. This puts their jobs at risk and adds pressure to their families who are already under stress from the prolonged absence of their loved ones,” said Bardis Vakili, senior staff attorney with the ACLUF-SDIC. “Many people remain incarcerated simply because they cannot afford bail. The fact that private prison companies like GEO thumb their noses at policies designed to reduce incarceration proves that their primary concern is maximizing their taxpayer-funded profits, with no regard to the suffering they impose on our communities. We urge the administration to use this six-month extension to wind down GEO’s operation of the Western Region Detention Facility rather than using it as an excuse to cement its long-term future there.”
The ACLU’s letter also details a pattern of abuse by GEO at the Western Region Detention Facility and its other California facilities, including medical neglect and gross mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other local organizations have called to close the facility as well.
“GEO, as a private corporation, profits from harming people and communities everywhere. The Biden administration must join the national consensus and deliver on its promise to close this facility,” said Adriana Jasso, program coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee.
The GEO-McFarland contract will not only violate the president’s executive order, it will allow a private prison company to recruit a cash-strapped municipality to exert influence over incarceration policies in another city 250 miles away, where the incarceration and its community impacts will actually occur.
This is not the first time GEO has turned to McFarland. , GEO also used McFarland (and the City of Adelanto) to circumvent procurement law in the context of immigration detention. GEO used similar pass-through contracts with the city to operate an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Bakersfield.
“If GEO’s cynical ploy to continue operating the Western Region Detention Facility prevails, it would render President Biden’s executive order meaningless,” said Jordan Wells, staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. “The executive order is meant ‘to eliminate the use of privately operated facilities,’ not to continue their use under restyled contracts. The president must not forsake his commitment to remove profit motive as an obstacle to reducing incarceration in the United States.”
The ACLU and human rights groups throughout California call on the White House to stand by its policy and not allow private prison companies to circumvent its executive order, which was issued in response to local communities’ demands to end our country’s overreliance on systems of mass incarceration.
"GEO has a longstanding history of medical neglect, abuse and human rights violations in its facilities. The Biden administration must stand with our communities and follow through on its commitment to end for-profit private prisons by terminating its contract with GEO for the Western Region Detention Facility," said Erin Tsurumoto Grassi, regional policy director at Alliance San Diego.
The letter is here:
Learn More About the Issues in This Press Release
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Prisoners' Rights
Criminal Law Reform
ACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law AllowsACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law Allows
WASHINGTON – A federal lawsuit brought today by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of D.C., and Jenner & Block LLP challenges the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for unlawfully incarcerating people longer than the law allows under the First Step Act. The lawsuit contends that the BOP’s failure to implement the First Step Act according to its plain language violates the rights of thousands of people who should be returning to their communities and rebuilding their lives but instead remain incarcerated. Signed into law in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, the bipartisan First Step Act was designed to reduce the population in federal prisons, reform extreme sentencing laws, and provide programming and reentry transition services to people in prison. Central to the First Step Act is a system of earned time credits, which allows people in prison to earn time off their sentences and time out of prison by participating in rehabilitation programs. Through the First Step Act, Congress unambiguously ordered BOP to move people out of prison when they meet certain requirements to use their earned time credits. Instead of faithfully following the mandatory law, BOP adopted a regulation treating the law as optional. As a result, thousands of people, who should already be back in their communities and with their families, remain in prison. “Every extra unlawful day our clients spend in prison is a serious injustice,” said Emma Andersson, deputy director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU. “It is egregious that the Bureau of Prisons is imprisoning people for months longer than the law allows. The government must follow through on its legal obligation to get people out of prison on time and back into their communities, where they belong.” Additional comments below from: Vanessa Crowe, plaintiff: “Time is what I owed for my wrongdoing, and I have paid my time. But I should not have to spend more time in prison than the law allows. I often reflect on what I will miss during the months after when I should be out of prison. I will miss work and lose out on wages that would help me get back on my feet. I could be a tax paying citizen instead of a burden on society. But most of all, I will miss more precious time with my family. My family and I are ready to tum the page on this period in our lives — we are all ready to start a new life, a life with purpose, hope, and healing together. I want to start that life when I am legally entitled to start it-not five months later.” Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at ACLU of D.C.: “There’s no excuse for the Bureau of Prisons to pretend not to understand Congress’s clear command that people who have earned the right to early release must be released. This law has been on the books for six years. The Bureau of Prisons has had plenty of time to understand it. Law enforcers should obey the law.” Betsy Henthorne, partner at Jenner & Block: “It has been six years since the First Step Act was signed, but despite Congress’s clear directives, the Bureau of Prisons continues to hold thousands of people in prison longer than the law allows. We should and do expect better—it’s past time for the BOP to ensure that those who have earned their release are able to return home to their families and communities according to the law Congress passed.” -
Press ReleaseSep 2024
National Security
Prisoners' Rights
ACLU Statement on Senator’s Discriminatory Questioning of Civil Rights Leader Maya BerryACLU Statement on Senator’s Discriminatory Questioning of Civil Rights Leader Maya Berry
WASHINGTON — American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero, released the following statement regarding Sen. John Kennedy’s questioning of Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute: “The American Civil Liberties Union condemns this discriminatory and vitriolic attack on Maya Berry, a renowned civil rights leader, and joins the chorus of voices from across the political spectrum in denouncing these remarks. “To use a hearing about the disturbing rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and antisemitic hate crimes to launch personal and discriminatory attacks on an expert witness they’ve invited to testify is both outrageous and inappropriate. This kind of racist rhetoric should be widely condemned. It has no place in Congress, or in politics. “Maya Berry is a courageous and compassionate leader who has spent her entire career working to strengthen our democracy and protect the rights of Arab American communities, and other vulnerable communities who face discrimination and targeting because of their ethnicity, race, or religion.” -
Ohio Supreme CourtSep 2024
Prisoners' Rights
State v. MorrisState v. Morris
This case in the Ohio Supreme Court concerns the scope of the state constitutional right to counsel. The police in this case interrogated the defendant, Isaiah Morris, without mentioning his already-appointed counsel or asking him to waive his right to counsel. This procedural circumstance risks confusing criminal defendants and undermining their state constitutional rights. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Ohio and WilmerHale, filed an amicus brief arguing that merely providing a defendant notice of Miranda rights falls short of the bare minimum requirements for a valid waiver. -
Oregon Supreme CourtSep 2024
Prisoners' Rights
Huskey v. Oregon Department of CorrectionsHuskey v. Oregon Department of Corrections
This case in the Oregon Supreme Court centers on whether Article I, Section 41(3) of the Oregon Constitution, which provides that Oregon prisoners lack legally enforceable rights to prison jobs and training, bars prisoners from collecting damages relating to lost prison jobs and training caused by the alleged breach of a settlement agreement by prison officials. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Oregon, filed an amicus brief arguing that that plaintiff Arnold Huskey, an incarcerated individual whose identity was used in Department of Corrections training materials, is entitled to damages notwithstanding Article I, Section 41(3), because plaintiffs in contract disputes never have to show standalone legal rights to the damages they claim. Instead, they need only show that the damages were reasonably foreseeable consequences of the alleged breach of contract.