Immigrants Boon to Prison Profits

To understand how well the prison business is faring and how immigrants are key to prison profits, you can listen in on the prison firms’ quarterly conference calls with major Wall Street investment firms. In early November, the country’s prison corporations reported soaring profits. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the country’s oldest and largest prison corporation, boasted that it enjoyed a $33.6 million increase in the third quarter over last year, while earnings rose 15%. Formerly known as Wackenhut, GEO Group, the nation’s second largest prison company, saw its earnings jump 29% over 2007. Another private prison firm that imprisons immigrants is Cornell Companies, and it reported a 9% increase in net revenues in the third quarter. Private prisons have been booming over the past eight years. From 2000 to 2005, the number of private prisons increased from 16% of all prisons to 23%. All of the increase in federal prisons has been in prisons owned or operated by private firms.

Immigrants are the fastest growing sector of the federal detainees and prisoners, and there’s hundreds of millions of dollars to be made by enterprising businesses and governments. The annual ICE budget for “detention and removal” is $1.2 billion. In addition, the Justice Department’s Office for the Detention Trustee has hundreds of contracts with local governments and private prison firms that provide beds for immigrants. Both ICE and OFDT have special offices that oversee the outsourcing of its immigrant prisoners. OFDT even boasts of its “enterprise” system of detention. Private prison companies aren’t worried that the Democratic Party sweep will mean that fewer immigrants are sent their way because of party promises of enacting comprehensive immigration reform. GEO Group’s chairman George Zoley on Nov. 3 assured investors: “These federal initiatives to target, detain and deport criminal aliens throughout the country will continue to drive the need for immigration detention beds over the next several years and these initiatives have been fully funded by Congress on a bipartisan basis.” Not only has the DHS crackdown on illegal immigrants have bipartisan support in Congress, it was the Democratic Congress, say private prison chiefs, that increased the 2009 budget for the crackdown. “The President only asked for a program funding of $800 million,” noted Zoley, “It was the Democratic chairman [Homeland Security subcommittee] … that added another $200 million to this program.”

In a post-election conference to report third-quarter revenue increases, CCA board chairman John Ferguson told Wall Street investors: “One budget that was put in place for the full year was immigration custom enforcement…and the funding for that is for 33,400 beds -- that's an increase from 32,000 in the prior fiscal year and also that compares to little over 31,000 detainees in [2007].”

“Just to remind everyone,” Ferguson told investors, “detainee beds that would be sourced from us from several places that immigration custom boys need -- that's border apprehensions, people that overstay their visas, [immigrants] that are identified as criminal , and the jails and prisons [that hold immigrants] who have completed their time and will be deported.”

Photo: Private prison for immigrants in Polk County, Texas

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Identity Politics in an Obama America?

Isn't it time to end the identity politics, whereby political officials are evaluated, supported, or promoted mainly because they are of a certain race, ethnicity, or sex, rather than for what they stand for? Too often the results are characterless figures like Alberto Gonzales and Clarence Thomas who are party loyalists, not champions of the disadvantaged or disempowered.

Apparently not. Before the election the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of more than two dozen Latino organizations, sent both candidates a list of policy recommendations, including a demand that the new administration increase Hispanic political appointments and name more Hispanics to the federal bench.

After Obama's victory, Latino groups, collectively and individually, began pressuring for Latino hires.

The country had just elected its first African-American president, who won popular support with a message of inclusion and change. But elite Latino groups, led by the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, insist that the large Latino election-day turnout for Democrats should be rewarded with increased Latino appointments in the new administration.

The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, headed by the president of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDF), sent a letter signed by 35 Latino groups to Obama urging him to nominate Bill Richardson as his secretary of state.

Ruben Navarrette, a syndicated Latino columnist, espouses identity politics yet he is skeptical that they will work the way they should for Latinos. In a column this week, Navarrette wrote: "Expect Latinos to get shortchanged—again. They may get bought off with a couple of high profile appointments. Bill Richardson is already mentioned as a possible secretary of State and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa could also be in line for a prominent role in the new administration. As someone who made history, Obama could also make more of it by appointing the first Latino to the Supreme Court."

In addition to Richardson, the main hopefuls to fill slots at high levels of the new administration include Denver Mayor Federico Peña, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Tampa lawyer Frank Sanchez, Mariano-Forentino "Tino" Cuéllar, former AFL-CIO Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, and former SEC Commissioner Roel Campos.

These and other names proffered by Latino groups are all Latinos. That makes sense, if one accepts politics as usual. In modern America the practice of promoting to political office members of ethnic and racial sectors by identity groups has helped open the political system to previously disenfranchised groups.

Undoubtedly this type of special interest lobbying has served the cause of civil rights in America—the best example being the current presence of African Americans at high levels of local and federal government. But it is fraught with problems.

Those advancing in the political system with the support of identity groups may share the same color and culture of their promoters but their advancement may not necessarily serve the best interests either of their identity group or of the American people as a whole, as in the case of Gonzales or the many anti-feminist women in conservative administrations.

What made good sense and good politics in the past may no longer serve either identity groups or the common good. Lobbying for public figures solely because they belong to a particular race, sex, or national origin does not guarantee advantages for that group.

Rather than playing identity politics as usual in identifying individuals to serve and represent all Americans, Latino constituencies and organizations would do better to develop a set of priorities for their communities and focus primarily on the beliefs and commitments of the nominees rather than numerical benchmarks. Then, they could recommend a slate of individuals, including many of the Latinos that all Americans have come to respect, who measure up.

Identity politics in an Obama America? It's time for a change.

Expect "Rule of Law" to Rule Immigation Policy Under Napolitano

The likely nomination of Gov. Janet Napolitano and the creation of an immigration task force within the transition team signal what?

The hopeful interpretation by immigrant advocacy organizations is that Napolitano along with the immigration task force are signs that immigration reform will be a priority for the Obama administration. Anti-immigration groups have a more sober, realistic assessment of Napolitano as a pro-enforcement advocate who has also called for comprehensive immigration reform.

Certainly, there is reason for relief that Michael Chertoff, a right-wing ideologue and Republican loyalist, will soon be gone. But he will leave a legacy in the two Department of Homeland Security agencies that implement immigration enforcement and border control – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

 Over the past three years, under his assertive leadership the two agencies have found purpose and direction, and its members have been given a sense of purpose that was previously lacking when its predecessor agencies were under the Justice Department and under the fumbling direction of the first DHS Secretary Tom Ridge.

 Following the lead of the anti-immigration institutes (FAIR, NumbersUSA, Center for Immigration Studies) and right-wing think tanks (Heritage Foundation), Chertoff came to Homeland Security with a new framing of the department’s immigration law enforcement and border control operations: Commitment to a strict enforcement regime to protect the country against foreign terrorists, and to reassert the “rule of law.”

 In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the restrictionist camp found that their message about the “illegality” and “criminality” of illegal immigrants had new resonance. And they proceeded to upscale the “what don’t you understand about illegal” message that echoed through the anti-immigration grassroots forces to a more conceptual framing of illegal immigration as a threat to the “rule of law” inside a nation that had just come under foreign attack by foreign outlaws.

 An October 2005 Heritage Foundation essay, "Rule of Law at Stake in the Immigration Debate," helped propel the rule-of-law framework into the mainstream media. Written by former attorney general Edwin Meese, a Heritage Foundation fellow, the essay was broadcast by Fox News.

Meese and foundation colleague James Jay Carafano wrote: "We need to encourage federal, state, and local governments to enforce our laws and work together to improve the security infrastructure at points of entry. Enforcement should include prosecuting benefits fraud, identity theft, and tax evasion, in addition to immigration violations."

 The “rule of law” framing for immigration works well for anti-immigration groups since it allows them to chart a course that is ostensibly separate from the nativists, economic populists, and white supremacists who spirit the grassroots ranks. It’s a message that is based historically and fundamentally on liberal principles of a government by laws not by royalty, aristocrats, and other elites.

 Another part of Chertoff’s legacy is his straight-out acknowledgement that immigration policy is flawed, but until there is a new more comprehensive law in place, DHS has a mandate to enforce existing law. Napolitano is by no means an anti-immigration hardliner.

However, as a lawyer, former federal prosecutor, and a governor who has insisted on more border control and stood behind a tough employer-sanctions law, she will fit easily into the “rule of law” framework for directing ICE and CBP operations.

 It’s a framework that has already been adopted by the Democratic Party and to a certain extent by Obama.

When asked by CBS’ Katie Couric about his illegal immigrant aunt, Obama appealed to this framework as one that should prevail in immigration policy. Couric: “You have an aunt who’s been living in this country apparently illegally, and your campaign says any and all appropriate laws should be followed. So would you support her being deported to Kenya?” Sen. Obama: “If she is violating laws those laws have to be obeyed. We're a nation of laws. Obviously that doesn't lessen my concern for her. I haven't been able to be in touch with her. But I'm a strong believer you have to obey the law.”

 During the campaign, Obama repeatedly said, as did Hillary Clinton, that, with regard to the immigration issue, America can be "both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws." Acknowledging that the immigration restrictionists were dominating the immigration debate, the Democratic Party and its allies have over the past year desperately sought to reframe the immigration crisis while at the same time attracting the allegiance of Latinos and “New Americans.”

Their new language about immigration policy—"nation of laws," "rule of law," and "required legal status"— started popping up everywhere, from the pronouncements of immigrant-rights groups to the Democratic Party platform. Instead of promising an "earned path to citizenship," as it has in the past, the party stated that illegal immigrants will be required to “get right with the law.”

"For the millions living here illegally but otherwise playing by the rules, we must require them to come out of the shadows and get right with the law," states the party's platform. "We support a system that requires undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, pay taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens."

 As governor, Napolitano has attempted to navigate between the vocal and highly-organized anti-immigrant forces and those Arizonans who resist succumbing to those forces of hate and reaction (from the business community to Latino and humanitarian groups).

While realistic about the impossibility of completely sealing the border, she has called for more border patrol agents, deployed the state’s National Guard, and supported for increased federal-state cooperation in immigration law enforcement, albeit at the same time opposing the immigrant crackdown launched by the infamous Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

 All the while, Napolitano has complained that the responsibility for addressing immigration-related issues lies with the federal government. She says she supported a tough legalization law, and, like Chertoff, has expressed strong support for temporary and guest-worker programs.

As Homeland Security secretary, Napolitano can be expected to follow the lead of Chertoff and the Democratic Party in insisting that current immigration laws be strictly enforced in order, as ICE and CBP routinely, “reassert the rule of law” in immigration and border control. In the absence of a reform law that provides a path to citizenship for the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants that route forward will be a victory for those calling for calling for restrictive policies on legal and illegal immigration.

Like Chertoff, she will have no power to shepherd through Congress a new immigration policy. What she can do, however, is reject the practice of her predecessor of using the law as part of a deterrence strategy.

Through highly publicized raids on worksites and through the shackling and imprisonment of immigrants, the DHS has sought to use the law to terrorize existing immigrant communities as part of a strategy to deter future illegal immigration. Napolitano can also use her position as a bully pulpit to explain that the rule of law is not an end goal.

It’s a path to justice. America is both a nation of laws and one where justice prevails, or it should be.

Restrictionists Ready to Challenge Obama

While pro-immigration groups are hailing the Obama victory and the Latino turnout as a victory for liberal immigration reform, immigration restrictionists are reshaping their messaging for the Obama era. Although not thrilled with the prospect of an Obama presidency, the restrictionists don't necessarily fear it. Some, including NumbersUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), already are trying to leverage Obama's promises to protect workers and create jobs.

Given how successfully the restrictionist institutes in Washington have tweaked their anti-immigration message in the Bush era to reflect new citizen concerns about national security and the "rule of law," it would behoove immigrant advocates and other supporters of comprehensive immigration reform to pay more attention to what the leading restrictionists are now saying.

During the campaign the anti-immigration groups despaired over the prospect of either McCain or Obama. But now the two leading restrictionist policy institutes, NumbersUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, point encouragingly to Obama's strong positions in favor of employee verification and employer enforcement.

They have also been confident that the aggressive enforcement regime instituted by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will persist into the next administration, especially given the way that many Democratic congressional representatives have supported increases in the department's immigration-enforcement and border-control budget.

However, it's the country's economic downspin that gives the restrictionists the most confidence that liberal immigration reform is dead for the foreseeable future.

See Entire Report

New Border Policy Report -- More Politics Than Policy

Effective Border Policy: Security, Responsibility and Human Rights at the U.S.-Mexico Border” November 2008, Washington, D.C. A new policy report by three U.S. border human rights groups in collaboration with the Washington, DC-based National Immigration Forum is full of important concerns and good intentions, but falls woefully short as a policy document. Those who support a liberal immigration policy that includes legalization and ends the terrorizing raids on communities and workplaces badly need expert analysis and policy recommendations based on grounded perspectives of what’s happening at the border. This report, however, is driven more by a set of progressive politics and dogmas than by timely, informed analysis. What’s truly stunning about the report, which purports to convey the view of borderlands residents about the “dynamic” border, is its one-sidedness. You wouldn’t know from reading the report that on the other side of these interconnected borderlands is complete mayhem. Despite noting the important cross-border ties that exist, it’s as if the problems of “security,” issues of “responsibility,” and abuses of “human rights” – the report’s three focus areas -- stop at the line. The report warns, for example, about the dangers of the “militarization” of U.S. border control. Yet on the other side of the border militarization isn’t an exaggeration but is all too real as the Mexican military, drug cartels, armed street bandits wage what verges on civil war.

See entire TransBorder Analysis

Cheney, Gonzales, Vanguard Group in "Prisonville"

Private prison corporations are a good place to put money – if you are interested in making good money from companies that imprison people for profit. As the two leading private prison firms like to tell investors, it’s a booming business these days not because crime rates are rising but because of the new opportunities in immigrant detention.

So it’s not surprising that Vanguard Group, one of the country’s largest mutual funds companies, puts its investors money into private prison firms, including the country’s two largest: Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group (originally incorporated as Wackenhut). Vanguard Group is also a major investor in Correctional Services Corporation.

Willacy County, Texas is the epicenter of the private prison phenomenon that is sweeping the country, fueled in recent years by the immigrant crackdown. Over the past three years, over 3,000 new “prison beds” have come on line in Raymondville, the county seat, as politicians and Texas developers have attempted to cash in on the federal government’s demand for prison space for detained immigrants. The largest operator is the Utah-based Management and Training Corporation, although GEO Group also has prison operations in Raymondville, commonly called “Prisonville” by locals.

The recent indictments of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for private prison-related crimes highlighted the controversial role of private prisons in immigrant detention. The indictments were filed by outgoing County Attorney Juan Angel Guerra but have not yet been signed by the county judge.

Cheney is charged organized criminal activity related to the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, while Gonzales is charged with using his position as attorney general to stop investigations of prisoner abuse at private prisons in the country. Also indicted are GEO Corp, state Sen. Eddie Lucio (profiting from public office by accepting honoraria), two district judges, and a former U.S. attorney.

The country’s largest private prison company, CCA, has no business in Willacy County. However, County Attorney Guerra had protested the country contracts with Management and Training Corporation, contending that CCA would be a better partner for the country. In particular, he charged that Senator Lucio was lobbying for MTC and, as a private prison consultant, was benefiting from his favoring the Utah firm.

For more on Willacy County and private prisons, see an excellent report in the Texas Observer by Forrest Wilder. http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2320

Photo: Private Prison in Raymondville

Latinos for Latinos

Identity politics gets results. Every four years Latino groups come together to demand that the incoming administration appoint Latinos to the cabinet and other high-level positions. The results, too often, have been appointments that dismay, such as former HUD secretaries Henry Cisneros and Mel Martinez and former attorney general Alberto Gonzales. Latino groups, as varied as the Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity and the National Council of La Raza, celebrated Bush’s nomination of Alberto Gonzales for attorney general. Despite his weak credential and ideological righteousness, Gonzales was widely praised during the confirmation process and later defended by Latino groups. The National Council of La Raza, which is now calling for President-elect Obama to nominate Latinos to his cabinet and other high-level positions, had criticized President Bush for not bringing a Latino in his cabinet after the departure of conservative Mel Martinez.

“We are very encouraged by the Gonzales nomination,” declared NCLR, “We previously criticized the Bush Administration for not having an Hispanic in the cabinet since the departure of former HUD Secretary, now Senator-elect, Mel Martinez. We are pleased that one of the first acts since the President’s reelection both rectifies that situation and marks an historic milestone for the Latino community.” “Never before has an Hispanic served as head of one of the four major cabinet posts – Secretary of State, Treasury, Defense, and Attorney General,” stated Janet Murguia, NCLR Executive Director.” Not a word about his political views. Being Latino seemed to be sufficient, that and that Gonzales was regarded by NCLR to be “a thoughtful, reasonable public servant, a man of his word.” This idea that a Latino in high places is good for all Latinos persisted within the Latino community through Gonzales’ sorry tenure as the country’s chief defender of constitution. In March 2007, the Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity In March 2007, HAPI issued a media release in support of the beleaguered Gonzales.

“On behalf of the nearly 20,000 members of the HAP Institute, we write to reject calls for the resignation of Attorney General Al Gonzales, and offer our full support for his long-term service to our President, our country, and the Hispanic community.” “Attorney General Gonzales has achieved what few other Hispanics have been able to accomplish. He is a role model for the entire Hispanic community and his success proves to our children that they too can realize their dreams. General Gonzales should not be used as a scapegoat by those who are against the policies of the current Administration. The Hispanic community will not tolerate partisan politics, with the end result being to sacrifice one of its most respected, and productive members.”

Isn’t it time to end the identity politics whereby political officials are evaluated, supported, or promoted mainly because they are of a certain race, ethnicity, or sex? Too often the results are characterless figures like Alberto Gonzales and Clarence Thomas who are party loyalists not champions of the disadvantaged or disempowered.

Apparently not. A few days after the elections Latino groups mobilized to pressure the president-elect and his transition team to advance the nominations and appointments of a bevy of Latino politicians, educators, and businessmen. Apparently not. A few days after the elections Latino groups mobilized to pressure the president-elect and his transition team to advance the nominations and appointments of a bevy of Latino politicians, educators, and businessmen.