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  1. #1
    Senior Member MyAmerica's Avatar
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    Lawsuits raise questions about private prisons

    Lawsuits raise questions about private prisons

    Immigration agency, contractors are accused of mistreating detainees
    By Leslie Berestein
    UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

    May 4, 2008

    HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune


    Issac Kigondu Kiniti, a Kenyan detained since 2004, was photographed last year as the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit alleging overcrowding at the CCA facility.
    As immigration laws have become tougher, the federal government has found itself with a logistical challenge: where to house a population that has swollen to more than 30,000 detainees.
    The solution? Turn them over to the private sector.

    Detention contracts have helped turn once-ailing private prison companies into a multibillion-dollar growth industry with record revenues, healthy stock prices and ambitious expansion plans.

    One of them, Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, has applied to build a nearly 3,000-bed prison in Otay Mesa, where it now runs a facility holding up to 700 detainees awaiting deportation or decisions on their immigration cases. The company is the nation's largest private prison operator.

    Private prisons: Corrections Corporation of America's agreement with the federal government to house immigration detainees in San Diego marked a turning point for the private prison industry. READ STORY

    On average, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement saves more than $31 per day, per person, by using a contract detention facility rather than an agency-run one. For ICE, it's a way to save potentially hundreds of millions of dollars a year while having ready access to more beds.

    In the past year, ICE and its contractors have come under fire for alleged mistreatment of immigrants. In San Diego last year, the American Civil Liberties Union twice sued the agency and CCA.

    One lawsuit alleged overcrowding at the Otay Mesa facility, with three detainees housed in cells designed for two. The other alleged inadequate medical care, with detainees complaining of being denied treatment or waiting months for it.



    PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune
    The CCA immigration detention facility in Otay Mesa is near the county's George F. Bailey jail.
    The pending lawsuits contend that immigration detainees, who are being held for violations of civil law, must be held in conditions better than those for criminal violators; anything worse amounts to punitive confinement without due process, a constitutional violation.

    Both ICE and the company, which is based in Nashville, Tenn., have said there was no wrongdoing.

    A 2006 federal investigation of five facilities used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement – an agency-run center, three San Diego County jails and the CCA facility in Otay Mesa – found flaws with all. Last fall, an ICE-run detention center in San Pedro, near Los Angeles, closed for repairs a few months after losing its prison accreditation.

    “The problems are not by any stretch of the imagination limited to private companies,â€
    "Distrust and caution are the parents of security."
    Benjamin Franklin

    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  2. #2
    Senior Member MyAmerica's Avatar
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    Speaking of over-crowding............

    Smugglers pack 30-some illegal aliens into a truck or van.........

    Drop houses sometimes contain 60 plus illegal aliens.........

    Sometimes 15 illegal aliens live in a one bedroom apartment........

    "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence." Article IV Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.
    "Distrust and caution are the parents of security."
    Benjamin Franklin

    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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