A few weeks ago the U.S. Department of Justice announced they will . Now their attention has turned to the country鈥檚 use of private immigration detention facilities.Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement Monday that he has ordered the homeland security advisory council to related to these facilities.
is the director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas Law School. She says that the announcement is very much in line with the national conversation surrounding the use of private detention and corrections.
鈥淢any of the same concerns that have been identified in the criminal justice context with privatized prisons are very much there in the immigration context as well,鈥� Gilman says. 鈥淭hese facilities are treacherous because the private prison companies who operate them are working on a cost incentive of trying to keep costs low.
鈥淭hat leads to dangerous conditions. Even on a bigger level, the concern is that the private prison companies have the wherewithal to influence detention decisions. So the policy impact of the role of private prison companies has been a real concern as well.鈥�
Nearly 70 percent of all immigration detention facilities are privately run 鈥� with Texas home to about half of all the beds in the country. In a nation that spends on average $2.6 billion annually on immigration detention, this could be a big blow for the same private correctional companies who鈥檝e already taken a hit in the wake of last week鈥檚 Department of Justice announcement.
is an analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC in Washington. He breaks down how much these rely on Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts.
Boltansky says Corrections Corporations of America鈥檚 contract with ICE was about 24 percent of the private company鈥檚 revenue in 2015. GEO Group, Inc., another private company, makes almost 18 percent of their revenue through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts.
鈥淥ut of the federal portion of these contracts, ICE is a significant portion for both of the publicly traded for-profit prisons,鈥� Boltansky says. 鈥淚 would note that Secretary Johnson鈥檚 statement doesn鈥檛 appear to be nearly as harsh as the Department of Justice memo that we saw a few weeks ago.鈥�
None of this means a death knell to the companies who run private prisons and immigration detention units. Even without federal contracts, these companies would still earn a significant portion of their revenue from state contracts.
The Department of Homeland Security鈥檚 immigration facilities review is due no later than November 30.
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