Making them work is not a form of slavery if that work is not being done for profit and is being done to provide the services that the people who are being kept in these facilities are being provided.
These places are not hotels where other people take care of your needs.
There is nothing wrong to make them work to clean the clothes they wear or cook the food they eat.
It's being done for them.
10
These people are here illegally. They didn't need to come here, and if they don't want to be 'exploited", they can go home! I frankly don't care what happens to them, other than their leaving the country. Worry about the "exploitation" of for-profit prison labor instead.
2
To anyone who defends these policies, I say, forcing prisoners to work for a dollar a day, is indeed, slavery. And for the government to profit from prison labor is unconscionable.
Too many studies exist now, on the importance of rehabilitation for a safer society, and forcing or coercing people to work in slavery like conditions is the kind of thing that makes hardened criminals harder.
Unless we want to just kill everyone that has ever committed a crime (and let's hope it's not your or your son or daughter), we have to consider the consequences of not offering rehabilitation to prisoners.
Those consequences are more crime, more children more likely to grow up as criminals when their parents are incarcerated (resulting in more social costs), more money spent on incarceration, and a society that is less safe.
Is there any logic in that other than retribution? Is America really that mean-spirited and illogical, too boot?
3
Reform is due.
1
Sorry, but no sympathy from me. Refugees around the world struggle as do those countries they have fled to. Countries that have their own poor and homeless to deal with. AND those refugees are at least grateful for safety. If those waiting in detention were honestly refugees, they would be happy to be safe; they would not complain. The fact is, they are not refugees, they are illegal immigrants seeking their choice of country to take care of them or provide them with whatever economic gains they desire.
I have an idea. You don't like it, GO HOME! We've by far too many in the US that need assistance, either because they have fallen on hard times or because they are addicts or mentally ill and choose not to work. Either way, we need to help our citizens and legal immigrants, not those who just believe they can go and do what they want and then whine that what they are receiving isn't up to the standard they expected.
PS While the privatization of jails and detention centers may not be what readers here want, I dare you to give it to the government to run.
2
My septuagenarian brother was involuntarily confined to a psychiatric hospital in New York, one of the bluest states, and I provided him with a toothbrush and quarters for the pay phone. What a country.
4
With regards to private detention centers, the last four words of the article says it all:
"...they shouldn't exist at all."
35
@Tom Sage They wouldn't if it weren't for illegals breaking into the country. Keep them out, and there's be no need for such places.
2
There is something intrinsically wrong with private, profit-making entities holding people in detention on behalf of the government. These businesses exist for the benefit of their shareholders; there is no way that they can provide humane treatment to inmates while bribing lawmakers and making money for themselves. If the government sees a need to incarcerate immigrants, or criminals, or anyone else, it should assume the moral responsibility of housing them and treating them humanely.
54
@David M. Perry -- and guess what? They often are more expensive than state-run prisons. My understanding in Arizona is that taxpayers guarantee 100% occupancy of its private prisons. (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/09/19/are-governments-incentivizing-longer-prison-terms/?utm_term=.73b878eb9d39)
So if crime goes down, they still get paid. It's not saving any money. Instead it's another way to funnel tax dollars to private business who've greased the palms of the lawmakers with campaign donations -- a kickback if you will, because it's all the taxpayers' money.
16
We are sure a horrible country.
3
So, to be clear, the U.S. is still a slave state. And it the world's largest.
4
here's a thought.... do away with these private "camps"... this is reprehensible...
3
Is it even lawful to put asylum seekers in detention centers?
2
Another eye-opening article on our privatized prisons, and now, detention centers. So many things that need change. What kind of “staff members” would threaten a more violent area, would withhold basic hygiene from anyone? What kind of hiring process, supervision, need for profit, encourages this petty behavior?
Where are the body cams on these ‘staff members’, if the company is denying the detainee’s claims? And why are there more violent areas to begin with?
What if- liberals, instead of marching, demonstrating for changes in our prison/detention systems, started applying to work there. Deluge these institutions with hundreds of applications, be up front about wanting to be a positive actor, a humane presence. What if there were ombudsmen required, staff paychecks penalized .....
Yes, the laws are overdue for change, updates. But it’s the people, the daily interactions that need monitoring and immediate action. By their neglect, these private companies are insuring their eventual demise. Try a little....decency, now.
2
We now have our own American gulags.
5
Just because it is legal doesn't make it morally right.
2
Personally I don't see anything wrong with that policy. Don't like it? Don't come here!
1
International and US law guarantees the right to seek asylum. Exploiting these people for profit is reprehensible.
5
This is the kind of story that should be widely publicized in Central America. Those people have no idea what's in store for them, so we should let them know before they leave to join the caravan trek to find a better life. Radio ads if they have no TV. Flyers in simple Spanish. Word of Mouth.
2
The modern GOP has no use for the 13th Amendment.
They seem to have forgotten their predecessors fought the bloodiest war in American history to put that Amendment in the Constitution. Of course, in those days there weren't many southerners in the GOP. It took Tricky Dick Nixon to accomplish that bargain with the Devil.
It tells you something about people's character when they have no problem with forced labour, but can't abide medical care as a human right. You can wrap that in evangelism here if you want to, but it won't get you past St. Peter.
3
They came for a job now they have one.
1
I read the headline. Then I had to read it again. Say what?!
At the end of the day we are supposed to be better than this. As a country, as a people, as a nation.
Trump is not scary because he is Trump, but because of what he has shown the Republican party to be as voters.
I believe we will turn it around. The first set of bills put forth by the new congress in the House were all about what 'draining the swamp' is supposed to look like.
Can you guess which party blocked them?
1
Now they're not only detention, but also labor camps. What have we become?
4
Let's face it. These "migrants" only want to get to CA where they will taken care of - free food, education, shelter - all at our expense. And how many poor, homeless legal citizens do we have in the US? Millions? There is nothing wrong with asking these people to pay their own way. It will act as a deterrent once word gets out. Let's hope so anyway.
4
This is a case of follow the leader. Our orange-haired leader has a long history of exploiting immigrant labor. Only last week, facing public revelation, he got rid of a dozen immigrant workers in one of his golf clubs. In Atlantic City he used skilled Polish immigrants for construction of a casino, not paying regular wage and not giving the promised full amount. It seems that the leader's main purpose in life is to accrue as much money as possible, regardless of fairness or ethics.
3
Thank you for this article - I hope to see more on the subject. I consider myself reasonably well-read, and had no idea this was going on.
2
Private prisons make immense sums of money in return for inadequate protection and care of inmates and immigrant detainees. They're not subject to the same regulations as government prisons, and their inmates suffer for it.
They make private "deals" with judges to assure inmates and detainees are sent to them, and the judges are paid under the table.
They also violate the 13th amendment, which forbids indentured servitude, as does Congress's $1 per day wage law for immigrant detainees. Then there are the basic human rights violations, for which there is a huge body of law.
These detainees have commited no crime. They're waiting for their paperwork to be processed. The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have refused to hire more civil servants and judges to rapidly process applications, in accordance with U.S. immigration law.
Since it's the Federal government's fault that there are serious lag times in paperwork processing, it's encumbent on them to ensure these immigrant detainees receive the best nutrition, healthcare, hygiene supplies and protection from bodily harm possible.
Congress should be fining these private prisons for lack of care and for human rights abuses, and they should repeal the unconstitutional $1 per day pay law. The private prisons, with their massive profits, can well afford minimum wage.
But the real point is that innocent detainees should not be punished in any way for not working. They're not criminals.
1
And thus we see yet another shining example of minimally regulated capitalism championed by the Republican Party.
It seems to me they care more about money from their corporate base than they do Liberty and Justice for All.
2
Welcome to capitalism 101, where everything in our present neoliberal model must become a profit center. Profit, according to neoliberal logic, is the essence of freedom and a free market is how we spread this freedom to all.
Well, not exactly all. And, sorry Paul Ryan, this market is anything but free. It is controlled, manipulated and exploited to extract labor from the most oppressed while 'selling' them basic necessities at company store prices.
Neoliberal economics is not only a lie from an economic point of view, it inevitably distorts the most basic human conditions in an endless pursuit of profit.
Wage slavery, especially under these conditions of forced confinement is slavery, period! And yes, our constitution never completely abolished slavery.
1
Last week the Department of Homeland Security began returning migrants who crossed U.S. border illegally and then applied asylum to Mexico. The United States will still process their asylum requests, but they will have to wait outside the United States for their cases to be decided. This will sharply reduce the number of asylum seekers held in detention.
Most migrants who cross the border illegally and then apply for asylum know their asylum requests will be rejected because they do no meet the criterial for asylum; the rejection rate is nearly 80 percent. But they crossed anyway because in the past they expected to be released into the United States with notification to appear at hearing set years in the future. Now that migrants know they will not be allowed to remain in the United States while waiting for their hearings, the number of asylum requests will drop dramatically.
7
@William Case
Maybe. But I guarantee we'll see a correspondng increase in immigrants who get across the border and never tell anybody. Except, of course, we won't actually see them.
Good solution.
The $2.8 billion request to expand detentions to 52,000 beds should be denied. No company should be treating inmates as these for-profit companies are said to do. (There should be frequent inspections of these places by those who are neutral parties such as ombudspersons to see what the living conditions are like and undercover investigations to see how persons are being treated.
If the owners are being paid per inmate they have a responsibility to prove that they are providing all necessary care of those being incarcerated. This includes providing adequately for both a persons's physical, psychological and spiritual needs. On a physical level, providing a bed with clean bedding, clean shower facilities, basic clothing, decent food and as needed medical and dental care is essential.
This article states that those held are not facing criminal prosecution but civil. This means they are either first time illegal crosses (a misdemeanor offense) and/or are legally seeking asylum..
Why are people in civil cases being held like criminals? It is expensive for our government.
Why have 'for profit' companies controlling detention facilities? It's immoral for for-profit companies to be reaping profits from these people.
Working under reasonable conditions while in detention is healthy and should be encouraged as often as is possible based on the health of the person.
We need to go to the source of why these people are fleeing and provide assistance to stop these conditions.
3
Twelve days of work to make a phone call, eleven for a tube of toothpaste. Slavery by another name is slavery just the same.
I'd bet the value of foregone wages is equal to the net profit of these companies, and we, the citizens, are complicit through our government.
Pride in country is difficult when we do such reprehensible things.
7
What about the 52,000 HOMELESS Americans living on the streets in Greater Los Angeles? Even Jerry Brown made the comment, "Perhaps they'd be better off working on a farm."
Can't we take care of own on citizenry FIRST?
8
No, Aaron. No we can't.
We as a people are inherently, probably genetically incapable of "taking care" of anybody, even ourselves.
The American people, by extension all people (because, obviously, Americans matter more than anyone) are a crop, an industrial process, a market to be exploited.
An unbearable cost to be minimized.
So we don't house or feed or teach ourselves. We don't, frankly, care if 70% of current jobs are due to fall to automation in decades to come...that's business.
We also don't care to make any provision for those formerly responsible and hard-working workers upon whom the fate of our economy formerly rested. Or their families. Or their soon-to-be woebegone communities.
Its America: if you lose its because your a loser. And in the USA losers don't get stuff. Ever.
It doesn't matter that we're suffering a shortage of workers, skilled and not so. It doesn't matter that our economy is shriveling for lack of active, successful participants. It doesn't matter that Americans are offended at doing the work many immigrants do; work that must be done.
If allowing some forlorn foreigner in to reap the massive benefits of life at the bottom of the American pile means we'll be helping them, we will not do it.
We'd sooner hide the water and let them die in the desert.
Because we don't help. We never help. Not even our selves or our own.
Law, policy, religions (if you judge by what they do), politics: we do not help. Not even ourselves.
2
@oogada
'It doesn't matter that Americans are offended at doing the work many immigrants do; work that must be done.'
When did this happen though? Until the recent influx of available, plentiful more or less illegal labor exploitable at will, American citizens did all the jobs - they even organized to demand better conditions for doing those jobs, it was called union organizing and it forced employers to improve conditions not because they cared, but because they needed those workers to do those jobs. We do not need compassion, we need clarity and laws, including immigration and labor laws.
2
@Georgiana
"Until the recent influx of available, plentiful more or less illegal labor exploitable at will, American citizens did all the jobs..."
Oh my dear, no they did not. Not for generations.
You should get out more, read what people aside from Trump and Hannity have to say. Study some history.
For very good and for ill, entire industries in America have been founded and staffed with immigrants, entire classes of jobs have been filled with illegal or seasonal immigrants for decades.
Ask your President...until he began to feel the heat last week, he aggressively recruited and imported illegal labor to staff his fabulous hotels and golfing factories.
No, it's not as if he failed to identify dastardly illegals who came gunning for jobs,; he actively went searching for illegals to import specifically to work for him.
He's President. He says he's richer than any man God ever made. Why would he go running to his favorite hunting grounds in Eastern Europe year after year to illegally import labor readily available here at home?
I know...he's a brilliant business man and he wants to save dollars to make himself all the richer and, hey, if he breaks the law and cheats the American people and prevents US citizens from finding work, well, that just proves how smart he is.
Your problem becomes evident, I think.
1
"Why is Congress allowing private contractors to exploit detained immigrants?"
A better question is: Why is Congress allowing illegal aliens to remain in our country?
The most sensible thing to do is to immediately expel all illegal aliens from our country. It just makes good sense.
5
Forced labour in civil detention camps in the 21st century?
Only in America.
Had this been another country, the US would cry for regime change, by force if needed, and for criminal persecution of the government.
6
If the people who were 'detained' had blonde hair and blue eyes. Forced labor would had ended yesterday. Hard to enslave people when they look like you. But when they have brown skin then one doesn't lose a night of sleep.
6
I don't know if private prisons are exploiting people in their prisons but if Trump wants more private prison beds my bet is that they are. Trump has no shame and neither do the stockholders of private prisons. Locking people up for money has to be the most depraved source of income, ever. Since the Republicans like this system I know it's evil.
4
I'm not really surprised, and I suppose the practice has been policy for many years, just that now with the high emotions surrounding immigration and Trump wanting to punish every Central American just for thinking of coming to the U.S., each detention center is a center of 21st century style slavery. Whatever happened to the far more cost effective policy of putting ankle bracelets on people while they go through the legal process that will decide whether they can legally stay or not?
1
I went to a boarding school in my teens and although room and board were paid for we were required to do chores, which included cleaning. On one occasion we were obliged to take part in a charity fundraiser which involved cleaning the houses of the towns residents. Actually, I resented doing that and did not want to do it. As someone else pointed out in the comments here now that would-be-asylum seekers to the USA are being delegated to wait-it-out in Mexico they will be able to take advantage of the Mexican presidents humanitarian visas and work permits. Therefore fewer detainees in immigration detention.
6
What struck me about the observation that the immigrant detainees while being paid under an obsolete law drafted in a bygone era are entering the USA and claiming asylum under archaic laws also written for a bygone era.
" . .immigrant detention centers need not pay workers more than one dollar a day, a rate set by Congress in 1950 and codified in the 1978 Appropriations Act. It has never been increased or adjusted for inflation."
The taxpayer is actually footing the bill for the detainees.
5
I say pay all prisoners/detainees minimum wage from which cost of food and lodging are deducted. Whoops...we're probably in the negative by now. So tell me, how are "free" people earning minimum wage, less than $8 in some states, supposed to get by?
1
Perhaps the migrants would prefer to wait for their immigration hearings in Mexico. See today’s NYT article titled "Trump’s New Policy Takes Effect, and First Asylum Seeker Is Sent Back to Mexico”.
5
Anywhere you find immigrants you will find a political faction bent on abusing them. The 18 republicans and Jeff Sessions are a small part of that (very influential) faction in the US. Combine an amoral border control regime with the lie of privatisation and this is what you get. I keep waiting - is America great again yet? At the rate you're going, I hope it's not.
3
Clearly, we need to process these cases quicker.
Obviously, there are legitimate asylum cases and there are also illegitimate asylum cases.
Forced labor is not an answer.
3
Here is one simple fact: in October of 2016 Core Civic hit a low of almost 13 dollars a share on February 19, it was trading 35 dollars a share. Obama was restricting the use of private prisons in 2016, one of the first things Trump did was rescind that policy. What was the commercial, "money talks nobody walks". Welcome to our America, the home of the brave and the land of the free.
2
Last week the Department of Homeland Security began returning migrants who crossed U.S. border illegally and then applied asylum to Mexico. The United States will still process their asylum requests, but they will have to wait outside the United States for their cases to be decided. This will sharply reduce the number of asylum seekers held in detention.
Most migrants who cross the border illegally and then apply for asylum know their asylum requests will be rejected because they do no meet the criterial for asylum; the rejection rate is nearly 80 percent. But they crossed anyway because in the past they expected to be released into the United States with notification to appear at hearing set years in the future. Now that migrants know they will not be allowed to remain in the United States while waiting for their hearings, the number of asylum requests will drop dramatically.
7
@William Case
Maybe. But I guarantee we'll see a correspondng increase in immigrants who get across the border and never tell anybody. Except, of course, we won't actually see them.
Good solution.
This is outrageous! It's slavery with a $1 per day loophole. Thank you, Ms Law, for this revealing article. It is as you say, private prisons and detention facilities should not exist. There is too much of a financial incentive to keep them full.
People who facilitate this industry disdain the common folk, yet their own souls are black and their coffers filled with tax dollars.
3
America the Beautiful. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Razzberries.
The more appropriate question to ask is actually why has Congress been allowing hundreds of thousands of people to flood our country either illegally or by exploiting asylum laws and gain representation in a branch of government meant to serve the American people first and foremost?
13
The whole business model of outsourcing stinks to the heaven whether done by private companies or by the government. People try to justify outsourcing by saying that the contractor has the core competencies required which are lacking in the employer and that the contract is for a limited time whereas if the same work is to be done by in-house employees, the employer will have to find some other work for the employees once that project is over. But the true reason for employing contractors is to same money and the only way the contractor is going to profit is by paying less to their workers. So the employer exploits the contractor and the contractor in turn exploits their workers.
3
First of all, this is a long term problem, the government should do it themselves. Contracting things like this is not the most economical or humanitarian way to do it. I spent 30 years working for the government, the last 8 or so were spent intimately involved in attempts to privatize in an ill fated attempt to save money. It was anything but. Contracting work that needs to be done long term is ill suited to privatization. The profit motive is involved and you cannot blame these companies for attempting to maximize their profit, that is why they are in business. Even so called “non profits”. We ran into repeated instances of these companies doing things that were not necessarily in our agency’s best interest.
Secondly, these contractors are being paid per person detained. Money they save by employing detainees should be refunded to the government. Furthermore, even if they wind up paying these people minimum wage, they still owe the government money. Where would they get employees for minimum wage?
After 30 odd years I have yet to see the government handle contracting like this in an efficient manner.
5
Crack down on exploitation and regulate service costs/gouging (like monopolistic utilities), but think about what you're arguing for--people who allege they are fleeing for their lives or desperate poverty can illegally cross our border and, although they are not free to go anywhere or do anything, are provided food, shelter, better safety (presumably, I'm sure word-of-mouth has warned of likely detention and they still prefer to come) and, Ms. Law argues, minimum wage jobs ... at citizens' expense while some of those citizens would love to have food, shelter, safety and minimum wage jobs handed to them.
3
There appears to be no limit to the evil now running our government. Osama bin Laden will go down in history as the most successful terrorist ever. He brought the greatest democracy in history to its ruin by elevating its darkest side. A moderate response to the kind of wanton inhuman behavior described in this article is inappropriate. For the sake of our nation, how much longer will good people do nothing?
1
Why should they be paid at all? they are coming here illegally. We should not be obligated to pay more than $1 or 2 a day. After all, we are housing and feeding them.
11
@Anonymous
You are advocating for slavery. For systematically enslaving people. How can you look yourself in the mirror?
6
@Gavriel
Easy.
All they have to do is not to come here.
Once they know that they will have to work for one dollar a hour and they still come they are implicitly saying they are willing to work for that amount of money and therefore it is not slavery
4
If you're not for a wall, you are for encouraging this kind of slavery.
9
When the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Rock, they failed to show a valid visa to the local authorities, the Pautuxet Nation. This makes anyone here of European origin -- "illegal."
What part of illegal do you not understand?
3
There are several issues here that need to be treated separately. First, there should be no private prisons for either illegal immigrants or criminal offenders. Private prisons provide too little transparence and are ripe for abuses to flourish. No one should be denied basic hygiene supplies.
However if Ms. Law's argument about the civil nature of immigration offenses is correct, then not only does the 13th Amendment not apply but then many others do not as well. In other words, if we aren't going to treat violations of immigration law as violations of the law, then immigrants have no right to appeal or to a quick and speedy trial or to free council, etc. My guess is that she wouldn't agree with that, but those are rights guaranteed only to those in the criminal justice system.
Now at a practical level, it seems to me that these immigrants should be paid minimum wage only if a certain percentage of their wages up to a fixed cap goes towards the cost of their food and housing. It's perhaps a bridge too far to expect them to contribute money to the salaries of the people ensuring they remain in a de facto prison but it's also a bridge too far for them to make a full minimum wage after violating our immigration laws while living rent free and with free food and basic necessities at taxpayer expense.
Provide the basic necessities for free, but if they want money for phone calls or candy or other standard commissary fare, then they'll have to work for it.
3
You're right! No more beds to put immigrants in!
Let they stay outside in the weather during this relaxing, balmy weather we're having. Who likes Latinos, Asians, and Muslims anyway, right Ms. Law?
(Where on earth do the propgressive politicians running the NY Times find these people?)
1
@L'osservatore
Where do they find these people? Everywhere. Mean-spirited humans who will do anything for money are just around the corner. It sometimes seems a miracle that altruism and hearts-of-gold could ever have come out of the same teaspoon of genes.
3
The whole concept of tiered person-hood is an abomination. Let people come here to work if they register and agree to identify themselves, period. Having a 2nd set of rules for a subgroup will always lead to abuse - and this seems to be a case of chose your abuser - a "legal" employer who ignores hiring rules, a jailer, or full-time criminals (this last group can overlap with the first two).
Those who were not born here do not need to be made citizens, but there is no reason to make them targets or to deny them any other rights and protections.
Of course privately run detection centers should not exist at all. There is no place for private-sector prisons of any kind. The profit incentives run counter to every objective other than making detention as widespread, long-lasting, and miserable as possible.
1
According to a local ABC affiliate, roughly 200 inmate firefighters assisted with the Butte County Camp Fire. The Inmates are paid $2 a day, and $1 an hour when fighting an active fire. They also earn time off their sentences. While some work programs have been known to decrease recidivism and improve outcomes after incarceration, programs like these rarely lead to firefighting jobs once inmates are released. (CNBC Make it) Another Exploitation? -With Phenomenal Risk
5
@That's what she said, Next they'll be asked to move nuclear fuel rods and scrubbing radioactive waste sites.
2
In early 2017 I wrote that the Trump administration's scapegoats would be the Latinos rather than the Jews but the outcome would be the same. Concentration camps. I was attacked vigorously for comparing the US with Nazi Germany because there was`no way America would seek the `final solution'.
Perhaps not, but long before the `final solution' the Jews and others the regime didn't like were gathered together in yes, Concentration Camps. There they worked as slaves and in fact signs over the gates said something like `Freedom in Work.'
How was I wrong?
I believe Stephen Miller is the driving force behind the outright cruelty of the Trump immigrant crisis, and he would have been very much at home alongside Herr Eichmann. He was an acolyte of the very rascist Mr Sessions, but is far more of a zealot. A dangerous and very nasty man whose policies are causing, and will continue to cause, vast human suffering without mercy.
1
Of course, the whole rationale for limiting immigration is that the immigrants would do jobs that could be done by citizens, but at much lower wages .... oh .. wait.
1
It is unfathomable how any comparison to Nazi concentration camps is dismissed off-hand when the argument to support such dismissals is "things aren't nearly as bad as they were under the Nazis".
To be certain, the practices that prompted the dismissals started out to be fairly uncommon and have become fairly widespread in the United States and, if left unchecked - which they have been overall up to this point, will one day spread at an epidemic pace.
But really? Since when has the threshold for taking action to prevent attacks on the ideals, values, beliefs and principals used to guide the national direction of the United States and the American people been:
"Yep, looks like things have gotten as bad as they were under the Nazis. Guess we can do something now".
Is that the new American Standard? "
4
This is disgusting, plain and simple. We have to put a stop to the for profit incarceration industry. If the government wants to detain undocumented individuals who cross out border illegally then it should be done with government resources, facilities, and personnel. Having a company whose business model depends on this at risk population, and then victimizes these people is as unamerican as anything I can think of. ANYONE who works for these places, from the site manager down to the custodian, should be ashamed of themselves for perpetuating this atrocity. Ignorance is NEVER an excuse. Shut them all down. If the USG cannot handle the job, then let the people go.
1
The US Constitution unequivocally prohibits, both in the United States and in any place under our jurisdiction, involuntary servitude "except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted". These detainees have not been convicted. In many cases the servitude is involuntary.
But then again, the Constitution doesn't mean diddly squat to this administration and its minions in Congress and elsewhere.
4
So these detainees have to work 11 days to get the price of 4ozs of toothpaste. And if they're so worked out they need a day off, they're deprived of pads for their period. This is inhumane.
The legalities might be a civil matter - the taxpayer-funded admin reported here is criminal in the extreme.
1
I suggest a system that provides better wages while taking into account housing costs.
1
When a person jails another person, we don't accept that consent is possible in such a power relationship when sex is involved -- should we accept that consent is possible when work is involved? Doesn't the power relationship make all consent claims invalid? I just don't see how paying the prisoners minimum wage can be a correct remedy for the lack of consent.
If the facts are as stated, the organizations involved are illegitimate -- the prison corporations and the U.S. government. I doubt that the legal system is capable of applying the correct remedies. The government's real-world behavior, contrary to what is taught about democracy in the schools, shows that the Founding Fathers were not quite as wise or benevolent as their apologists claim.
6
I have been very angry lately, but this situation is beyond the pale. As more unfolds about how the detainees are being treated I am feeling more and more ashamed of this country's policies. Even in 1950 when Congress set the wages in detention camps at $1 a day, those were slave wages.
Private companies should not be running prisons or detention centers. A moral person does not make a profit off the misery of others and a moral nation doesn't allow it.
At the end of WWII the US put war brides in internment camps before they could come to this country. My mother and I were held in an internment camp in England, and to add insult to injury, the US put German POWs in charge. They kept most of the food for themselves and my mother gave most of our small allotment to me. When we were released my mother was skin and bones and very weak.
I can't abide what our immoral government is doing in the name of its citizens. I fear what they may do next. I have given up calling my senators because it falls on deaf ears. They are both right-wing Republicans, and a couple of halfwits to boot.
11
The republicans on the pay of these companies:
Lamar Smith, Jody Hice, Matt Gaetz, Steve King, Mike Rogers, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, Dana Rohrabacher, Paul Cook, Scott Taylor, Earl “Buddy” Carter, John Ratcliffe, Duncan Hunter, Bob Gibbs, Barry Loudermilk, Brian Babin, and John Rutherford
Racists and ardent supporters of our autocratic presidency. Hardly supporters of the Constitution or Bill of Rights
2
The GOP ideal--slave labor, like in those southern jails where they throw black men in to get their labor for free.
1
Slavery, making a comeback.
3
Once a slave nation, always a slave nation.
People seeking asylum from tyranny are meant with hostility and tyranny here- how ironic. And shameful.
4
Trump and the emergence of the new Confederate States...
4
This is every Southern Slave State Conservative's dream come true!!
Slavery is back!!
Jeff Sessions promised he would get revenge for the Confederate losers in 1865, and by golly, he is going to win against those 'Deep State' Blue Bellies.
Time to finish Reconstruction.
Neo-Confederates and the Evangelical party are intent on hate and fear, obsessed with racial purity. 'Unite the Right' is all about bringing together Confederate flags and swastikas.
So who owns the prisons? Who are the investors? Who audits these prison companies? If public dollars pay for them, then we have every right to know.
3
The Con Man in Chief.....
The President's Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Budget Request
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/DHS%20BIB%202019.pdf page 10 of 109 • $1.6 billion for 65 miles of new border wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley Sector to deny access to drug trafficking organizations and illegal migration flows in high traffic zones where apprehensions are the highest along the Southwest Borde
1
There should not be confinement for civil offenses or for anyone waiting to be adjudicated for a civil offense. Prison and confinement is for criminals found guilty, awaiting trial and not out on bail. Prison is not for alleged civil offenses.
Forced labor is prohibited under state and federal regulations.
The idea for private prisons was born under the assumption that the states and the feds would save buckets of money for the taxpayers. There was nothing about making prisons into for profit private enterprises that would benefit owners and mistreat prisoners in the process. We should dismantle the private prisons and release anyone held for civil offenses. We should also see to that private prison owners are investigated for violating the 13th amendment and a host of other laws that protect citizens and non-citizens alike. The Nazis of Germany in WWII used slave labor to build material for their war machine. This is much too like Nazism than American Democracy.
4
I have been to one of those concentration camps a/k/a detention centers in South Georgia visiting a client. The US Constitution ends at the front gate.
4
Stop calling them “detention centers”. NYT editors: time to recognize that these are “forced labor camps”. Update the style guide!
4
Simple, stay in your own countries and stop having children that you can not afford.
7
Republicans claim they are saving people from traffickers only to enslave them and extend their time in detention.
How American, How patriotic, How entrepreneurial!
94
Forcing people to work or go without basic hygiene supplies is disgusting. Price-gouging the cost of phone calls and basic hygiene supplies is outrageous. In other US prisons, people are charged outrageous rates to receive mail, or forced to use the overpriced email provided by contractors. These things ought to be illegal. Let's hope the new Congress has a backbone & makes these things illegal!
163
I know Victoria Law's work well, having followed her activism and advocacy on behalf of women in the criminal punishment system for years now. I was very excited to read this, and as always, learned a great deal.
For myself, the closing line carries so much truth, beyond this issue: "But if privately run detention centers rely on a business model based on forced labor, perhaps they should not exist at all." The same should be true of any industry that relies on exploitation, low wages, unsafe working conditions, or ecological/environmental destruction.
I encourage everyone reading to share this piece with our friends and communities.
144
@21st Century White Guy
One thing I did not learn was how long this practice has been going on, other than it seems to be across multiple administrations. Now there are just more detainees, raising its visibility, but I assume the practice has been the same, given that one of the complaints is that the pay rate has not been adjusted in decades. So this does not seem to be a new phenomenon.
You're talking about the same Congress and President that just required Federal employees to continue to work without wages during the shutdown, right? Why should their behavior in this case be any more surprising?
98
This is an important article. It also makes me wonder if a case can be made that requiring federal workers to work without pay also potentially violates the 13th amendment. Call me just a little ticked off as a federal employee after missing two paychecks....
3
This is the result of the CSA ideological takeover of the GOP: slave labor in immigration camps, prisons and from pregnant women.
4
Paging Kim K and Kanye ...
This is pure slavery. The Contractors and their employees should immediately be arrested.
3
ICE is a criminal organization at all effects engaged in human trafficking. It must be disbanded and those that have facilitated this new form of slavery should be brought to justice.
1
Greed, greed, greed; always the insolent greed.
3
This needs immediate, thorough investigation! If evidence proves the validity of these atrocious claims, it must be stopped.
What is happening to our country? There seems to be no end in sight of this administration's egregious activities! Just sickening.
3
Didn't we already outlaw slavery?
3
Slavery? We are now abetting slavery? Again?
4
This is an outrage. I so hope cable news shows pick this up and get more light on this abomination.
3
Liberals have several blind spots. One is that they seem to be unaware that the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, about 5 times that of Saudi Arabia which is held up as an example of a poor human rights record, and 14 times as high as that of Japan. About 6 million Americans, mostly men, are in prison, on probation or on parole. They belong to a quasi-permanent underclass in the US.
We have lots of people who enter the US illegally. What do we do to them? We could set up a draft, and use the recruits to run military prisons. We could raise taxes to support enlarging state and federal prisons. Or we could save money by hiring corporations like the GEO group which try to run prisons efficiently. The last of the alternatives sometimes appeals to governments that want to save money.
But should the detainees work? Maybe not. But what about the incarcerated US citizens which often suffer a bleak existence in prison, including rape by other inmates. Maybe we should be doing something for them as well.
Many of the US citizen prisoners were not actually guilty of the crime they were accused of. That's because between 94% and 97% of cases are settled by plea bargain instead of trial. So you have many US citizens being raped in prisons for crimes they didn't commit.
This essay by Victoria Law is one of the reasons that people sometimes regard the NY Times as fake news.
The reporting is accurate. But why sympathize with immigrants and not US citizens?
5
@Jake Wagner. Guess ya kind of like to skip all the editorials in the NYT in regards to prison reform..,most recently speaking of the abolition of forms of cash bail which are highly discriminatory against people of limited economic means. Or the myriad articles against the privitazation of prisons. You are just trying to perpetuate an us versus them in regards to immigrants and US citizens. Why does justice have to be so limited that it cannot be offered to all? The NYT has railed against prisoners being forced to work with little or no pay. They are continuing this to apply to people who are not even people convicted of a crime.
3
@Jake Wagner " But what about the incarcerated US citizens which often suffer a bleak existence in prison, including rape by other inmates. Maybe we should be doing something for them as well."
This is just another form of "whataboutism."
Absolutely something should be done for them as well. But, the fact that we're not doesn't mean that we can't take action elsewhere.
4
It reminds of the convict lease system. Just that refugees and asylum seekers are no convicted persons.
1
This is an incredibly important article and I am surprised that there are so few comments. But then I have no words to express my disgust so I am going to assume I am not alone in that reaction.
3
You see, this is why the rest of the world thinks that when we speak of human rights and dignity, that we are a joke.
This country needs to remember that the opposite of "privatization" is "nationalization".
Every one of these "private" prisons, as far as I can see, are illegal.
Nationalize every single one of them.
6
It is stories like this that force me to re-calibrate downwards my expectations for American democracy. If you were to cut and paste to make this read "North Korea" or "Russia" instead of the United States not a single person would hesitate to describe this as anything but the actions of the most corrupt system of governance imaginable. But here we are the good old U S of A where an opportunity to exploit one's power over others is never wasted.
6
This is simply slavery. That’s what it is. We are going backwards... horrifying. And don’t tell me they have broken the law by coming here. What real right do most of us have to even be here? Let’s face it. Just a few generations back we stole it all from the Native Americans. Where is the logic in any of this?
3
How depressing to learn of this state sanctioned slavery. Trump's America goes on provocatively challenging the good conscience of the God fearing, and that of their agnostic and atheist brethren, every single live long day, but where is the outrage? A missed call in a big game sparks a million times more.
4
It is obviously amoral and ethically criminal that we are ".... allowing private contractors to exploit detained immigrants".
But the level of that criminality doesn't compare to our country's businesses exploiting undocumented immigrants - they treat them as modern slaves, threatening them with deportation extorting work for low wages, no health care, and silence.
Luckily our nation's leaders understand this and would never sanction the business world's abuse … oh, wait, our own President of the United States has employed for many years undocumented immigrants, paying them minimal wages, providing no health care, and requiring their silence.
59
@JFR
NOT amoral. IMMORAL. Evil.
11
More prisoners bring more profit for private prison companies.
Prison company executives have a fiduciary duty to increase the national incarceration/crime rate.
What could possibly go wrong?
14
Why am I not surprised?
The US became a for-profit endeavor 39 years ago. Very few noticed...
7
@HapinOregon
Your comment begs to be explained: "The US became a for-profit endeavor 39 years ago. Very few noticed..."
Are you equating this "non-profit endeavor" with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980? I can see tendrils of your logic, but please explain your statement.
I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Not all outsourcing decisions are bad. Conservatives have long argued for for the privatisation of federal expenditures, from subcontractors for military commissaries to private prisons and schools.
But profit motives in conjunction with with 'retributive' imprisonment, which conservatives have long championed, in conjunction with lax oversight, which conservatives have long sought to weaken, lead directly to the marginalization of the least among us.
And here we are.
13
@RDY
Who should we outsource the GOP to?
Russia or China?
5
The equivalent of slave laborers working for private companies, and all sanctioned by US law? If true, this is perverse and I want my country to have nothing to do with this practice. It needs to end. If a situation like this doesn't drive home the point that comprehensive immigration reform is required then what does?
Fix the law so that required workers can obtain documentation that is required in order to be hired
Hold companies responsible for hiring legal immigrants (If the President's hotels can't properly vet immigrants, how can anyone else do it?)
Increase border security as necessary
Oh yeah. Fix the H1-B process. Create a system where qualified Americans can easily report employers who replace US workers inappropriately. Any (former) software engineer, as well as many other's in various professional fields , can tell you about the nonsense that goes on with that Visa program.
15
@Martin New Jersey does not require employers to use the E-verify system. For unspecified reasons tRump’s golf club in Bedminster, NJ chose not to voluntarily use the system. I’m guessing that it’s easier to hire low wage employees if you don’t ask too many questions. I’m always impressed when our ‘leader’ leads by example.
4
Suggestion: If you want to emigrate the USA, which I think is absolutely wonderful if you do, please get your paperwork in order first.
The people of the USA absolutely love immigrants! We are all immigrants.
The people of the USA are for Legal Immigration!
The people of the USA are against illegal immigration.
There is a Big difference.
10
@Johnny dangerous The fact that you can, so callously, make this comment shows the dangers of Trump's rhetoric towards immigrants. This piece is about people who were ENSLAVED, and your first response is to admonish them for not having their papers in order? I assume that you were the same sort that looked at the horrors of the child separation policy and thought "Yep, that's exactly what I want from my government!".
We have seen this rhetoric before, and we know where it leads.
7
@Johnny dangerous
Legal immigration can take years in most circumstances, time asylum seekers do not have.
I hope you're in support of fixing our unnecessarily burdensome legal immigration process, instead of punishing our fellow brothers and sisters over circumstance of birth and not content of character.
Otherwise your suggestion is a bit too "let them eat cake".
5
@Johnny dangerous
"We are all immigrants" is false. Many people here are descended from people who were forcibly brought to this country as slave labor. Many others are descended from peoples who lived here before colonists came and took their land. Others still are descended from colonists, who came to create a new society, which is different from immigrants, who join a country or society that has already been established.
3
Good Lord, the nation is becoming more unrecognizable every day as the beacon of hope it once was for oppressed people around the world. The idea that corporations are permitted to profit off human misery is dispicable. Are we to believe the dollar a day keeps it from being slavery?
17
No wonder the right likes detention so much. It is effectively slavery by another name. Those Good 'Ole Boys really know how to make a profit from the misery of others.
Privatization = using the government to make a profit unattainable by other means.
27
This is an embarrassment to the concepts of democratic and open societies. Given that the US is quickly moving away from those two ideals, these horrors are not surprising.
It is another form of paying contractors for war power. As we try to remove troops and contractors from Syria and Afghanistan, we pay contractors to exploit people on US soil.
45
@Anthony
The atrocities once contained to the fringes of empire will come home to native soil during the collapse.
9
Every day another story about this country that makes me want to cry. This is unconscionable. One dollar a day?? It's shameful and as an American I am disgusted and embarrassed (again). Prisons should not be run by private companies. There can never be the oversight needed to prevent violence against and exploitation of inmates. If we are what we claim to be, then these immigrants are at the least entitled to be treated like something other than slaves. That said, minimum wage would be questionable, since they're not required to pay for room and board, taxes, food, etc. And what would stop a whole new wave of immigrants from crossing the border, getting caught, and making a good living in detention with no responsibilities. A middle ground is needed, but NOT $1/day.
9
As the personal bubbles people construct to enable them to cope in the modern world continue to pop, more and more Americans will open their eyes and come face to face with the reality that the United States quit being what it pretends to be a long time ago.
The real question is what will they do with their new knowledge and will it be too little too late.
2
These human rights violations have been seen in private prisons since their inception. Now private for profit detention centers are becoming more prevalent. The entire concept of bottom line for profit imprisonment is a disgrace and must be stopped now.
10
Now is good.
Yesterday would have been better.
2
Lordy. Is this really true? Congress, fix this please and now. These immigrants including legal applicants for asylum are subjected to forced labor? Every day we learn of some new abuse perpetrated on brown immigrants by the Trump administration, ICE, or their contractors. These private facilities are badly run, abusive and cruel. They even extort them for phone calls and toothpaste. Surprise: These private companies spend millions for lobbying and political donations. I'm surprised the slumlord Trump and Kushner families aren't interested.
19
@Robert
It's NOT forced labor and it isn't anything NEW.
2
@Robert
“I'm surprised the slumlord Trump and Kushner families aren't interested”.
They might very well be. We just don’t know.
2
@tbandc
If an immigrant is required to work or they'll be transferred to a more dangerous area with a risk of physical harm, that is no less "forced labor" than whipping someone who doesn't want to work.
5
Saturating formally First World countries with Third World migrants is the new status quo in reaping huge profits.
It's also called Neo-colonization. We've turned into Brazil, especially in states like California and Florida and nobody, absolutely nobody points this out or reports about it.
4
Wait, what? Our gov't is being lobbied to accomodate profit-making off the backs of detained migrants and our taxes are paying for this? No wonder they are so opposed to "catch and release." God forbid they should find a job at a Trump golf course.
20
@Susan Bojjin So very well said, Ms. Susan. Thank-you for your cogent perspective.
4
If you want to send a book to an inmate, you have to buy it from Amazon, and only Amazon. Not sure about immigration forced labor camps, but in Minnesota prisons that’s the rule. Monopolies.
5
These asylum seekers have supposedly escaped from mortal danger in their home countries.
They are now receiving safety, free food, shelter, medical care, and education (children).
Honestly, it’s a surprise that they are not grateful enough to VOLUNTEER for whatever work needs done.
11
@John
They are also caged, kept from contacting their loved ones, prohibited from leaving, and in some cases emotionally and physically abused.
If these detention centers are so wonderful, why don't you contact them and see if you can rent a cage for a few months to enjoy the free ride yourself.
8
@John This was the pro-slavery argument in the antebellum era. Our Constitution outlaws slavery, regardless of citizenship status; that's why sweatshops are illegal. Plus, we're talking about human beings, not animals.
8
@JoAnn
So slaves came to the U.S. willingly to escape danger?
Huh?
Asylum seekers came to the U.S. and we've given them temporary protection and sustenance. They are certainly free to leave any time. Many/most Americans wish they would.
But if they choose to stay, it would be very nice of them to volunteer as much as possible.
2
That anyone can exploit Immigration detainees is this way is the most outrageous thing I've ever heard. What on earth has our country become? And the idea that Congress would support it.
6
" immigrant detention centers need not pay workers more than one dollar a day, a rate set by Congress in 1950 and codified in the 1978 Appropriations Act"
So how are the lawsuits going to succeed? It sounds like the current practice is legal and it's up to Congress to pass a new law to fix it. Seems like they could have embedded that in the Criminal Justice Reform Act that just passed.
2
@Pono
Read the info. They couldn't change or embed it in any "Criminal Justice Reform Act" - because the detainees aren't "criminals". This imprisonment is a CIVIL arrangement.
3
The federal government can find the money to require private corporations to pay detained immigrants minimum wage by stopping compensation for the Secret Service "protection" of Trump's family and renting golf carts.
5
"The government pays them a fixed daily price per person, so they have an economic incentive to run their facilities as cheaply as possible..."
Correction:
"The government pays them a fixed daily price per person, so they have an economic incentive to *detain large numbers of people*..."
33
I read somewhere when we remembered the Japanese Internment camps we all said never again. Well, internment camps are here and we are all paying for it. This modern day "slavery", forcing people to work on these contractors orders, is incredibly anti-American. Children in cages, people forced to work or face retaliation and private contractors creating more criminals by treating prisoners like animals. 2020 can't come any sooner. But we must insist that all these private contractors who are complicit in crimes against humanity be taken to the cleaners and their CEOs or owners be held accountable.
18
@amrcitizen16
When these private contractors contribute $ 250,00 to Trump's inaugration, will there be any "crimes against humanity" actions? We are now in the business of enabling privated comanires run slave camps!
3
@amrcitizen16 Wow these private jails all showed up after Trump. Sure I'm that gullible. Are you?
@Steph But, under Obama, the feds were moving to phase out the use of private prisons. Trump saved their business model.
5
"But if privately run detention centers rely on a business model based on forced labor, perhaps they should not exist at all.
Regarding a recent column about "liberal" economic policies, I read to my horror a comment from a reader who believed that it was capitalism that keeps us free, and that we must take care that democracy should not be allowed to restrain capitalism. Yet, time and time again, as is presented here, we see that unfettered capitalism can and does lead our government and ourselves down dark alleys that are the very opposite of freedom and justice. This is horrendous. Congress must investigate. If Congress confirms this picture, Secretary Nielsen must resign, and the President must be impeached.
25
@Paul Dobbs
Did you at all bother to see how long these laws have been on the books? Kind of relevant to the discussion.
1
It is estimated that approximately four percent of the population held in immigration detention has a valid claim to US citizenship. Nobody knows for sure because ICE, if they have the numbers (and I am sure they do) will say only that they do not track the numbers of US citizens in immigration detention. But this number is far from zero.
These are people with a valid claim on the right to walk the streets in America, even as you or I yet, and having committed no crime and having broken no law, are behind bars in immigration detention. Some will actually be deported but most - eventually, months or years later - will be able to prove that they are United States Citizens and will be released, hopefully to resume their lives.
In the meantime they are subjected to these conditions, including working for a dollar a day or, essentially, starving.
Now you might make the argument that this is fine for non-citizen detainees (I would refute this but you are free to make the argument) but there is no way to make such an argument for the case of a US citizen wrongfully held. And regardless of whether you think such treatment is justified concerning non-citizens I fail to see that any word can be used to describe such treatment toward citizens other than slavery.
But is it not the case that if it is slavery for citizens then it is slavery for non-citizens? Where do we draw the line?
12
We must stop this practice. We must stop months-long detention.
Extend the fence so they can’t step foot in the U.S. in the first place, except through controlled entry points.
Hire more judges and reprioritize asylum appeals so they can be rejected (90%) and deported in mere weeks.
The money that we’ll save will more than pay for the extended border fence. And we won’t have to worry about private contractors and “voluntary” labor. It’s a complete win-win.
7
The profit motive for the private immigrant detention center is very obvious now, with this report. While were waiting for the House to act, lawyers ought to be talking to each one of the 48,000 people being held and represent them, individually, and sue those private companies for back pay with interest. Each one, who worked a 40 hour week for a 50 week year is probably owed no less than $25,000, perhaps more. A law firm representing 1000 immigrants would make a nice profit too. Fight profit with profit!
3
"Why is Congress allowing private contractors to exploit detained immigrants?" The question is not that hard to answer. Since they are here illegally and are getting free room and board, along with medical care, they should be required to something in return.
5
@Rob-Chemist 'People held in these facilities are not charged with any crime; they are being detained while awaiting asylum or deportation hearings.'
9
Rob-Chemist - did you not read the article?
"But immigrant detention is civil confinement, not criminal. People held in these facilities are not charged with any crime; they are being detained while awaiting asylum or deportation hearings."
For all we know, tens of thousands presented at the border seeking asylum, which is perfectly legal. In fact, it states clearly none have been charged with a crime.
Exploiting them to make a buck is cruel, inhumane and immoral.
21
"These two corporations have become the giants of the private prison industry. Between 2016 and 2018, CoreCivic spent $2.8 million in lobbying and over $700,000 on campaign contributions while GEO Group spent $4.4 million in lobbying and $2.5 million on campaign contributions. Each company also donated $250,000 to Mr. Trump’s inauguration."
The above excerpt speaks volumes, and together with the absolute fact that America was built using slave labor, right from the beginning, which continues to this day, hidden in the orchestrated and wholly deliberate failure to pay living wages to tens of millions of Americans, and fighting tooth and nail so the descendants of those long dead Masters may continue the exploitation.
The Land of Liberty, yes indeed, but only for the Masters.
28
Immigrants have been exploited for the get-go. This just goes to show it hasn't stopped.
Our country is becoming morally bankrupt.
A wake up call in Congress is desperately needed. Time for a complete change in membership as the current members do not seem to want to do their jobs.
18
The apotheosis of unregulated capitalism is slavery: owners collude to control a market, and pay zero wages to workers so as to maximize as much profit for themselves as possible. Owners also use violence, intimidation, and fear to control the workers.
The companies running these detention centers are yet another example of the amorality of unregulated capitalism. It's one thing to ask capable detainees to help maintain the facilities in which they're housed. It's another thing entirely to exploit a vulnerable population to make as much money as possible.
This story is appalling, but all too common. Likewise the behavior of the 18 Republican Congressmen who support such practices.
41
@jrinsc actually slavery was ultimately incompatible with capitalism, as all capitalists and historians know. IT's expensive to house and care for a human. It's much cheaper to invest in fixed capital (machines) and then bring in humans as wage laborers who must pay for their own survival, and be jettisoned in times when less labor is needed. This is basic. Slavery is an outdated model of capitalism, not its apotheosis. We don't know what its apotheosis is yet. But global capital, where there is always a more exploitable population of cheap labor elsewhere, has so far proved to be the most efficient model for cheap labor and maximum profits.
3
@Satantango
All capitalists and historians do not agree on your point. Ultimately, the labor of humans becomes an expendable commodity. Was it expensive for the Germans to "house and care for" Jews in Auschwitz, forced into slave labor? An easy scenario to imagine is a kind of pseudo-slavery like these detention centers, except on a global scale: people paid next to nothing, and at the mercy of a limited market that can charge whatever it wants, all to enrich the few. How is that not a form of economic slavery?
3
I have a real problem with the privatization of detention wether criminal or for civil confinement.
The laws of our land place people in prison when they have been convicted and sentenced for a crime committed. This is the American government's judicial system. Therefore, the American government should be responsible for and accountable for the detention.
Private prisons bring with them the profit motive which can become the prime motivator. It is not farfetched to imagine judges helping their CEO friends fill their private facilities. And how are these private prisons and or detention centers accountable for their policies and practices?
It is difficult enough for government to address the problems in government prisons let alone trying to keep the "private sector' facilities accountable. Unfortunately, these facilities are ripe for abuses of and by the human populations in them.
44
@Elizabeth
Agreed. Some things should be the sole responsibility of the sovereign. We should end private prisons, not to mention private military forces (mercenaries) who contract with the government (or the next highest bidder).
7
@Elizabeth
At least one judge helped a for profit prison fill its facilities--with juveniles!--and took $2.6 million in kickbacks. See https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html.
11
@Martha Shelley
Unbelievable. The depths of depravity some "human beings" sink to staggers the mind.
4
Well said. This, along with keeping people awaiting trial, sometimes for years, in places like Rikers Island, which are violent and dangerous, seems counter to our founders intentions (and frankly, words).
11
Most probably, because the practice is fundamental to the nation's idea of entitlement for the righteous at the expense of 'those people'. Whether belonging to a different tribe, religion or congregation, or simply 'because we can'
I can point to the indented servitude enshrined in the H-1B visa program enacted by congress, or the practice of excluding convicts from exercising the fundamental right to vote.
It is probably part of the nation's collective psyche that seems to point to notions of fundamental inequality, or at least seeks to exploit these, wherever possible.
11
Why would anyone work "voluntarily" for $1 per day? Obviously, these people are coerced to work and punished if they don't. C'mon Congress. Can't you see injustice even when it stares you right in the face?
82
They are confined bored and worried. There is limited programing and some want a distraction that work provides. Confinement itself is coercion.They could pay them the ridiculously low federal minimum wage and still make a profit.
8
Mike,
Not only do the see the injustice, our Congress is part and parcel of the problem, and several Congress people are in the pay of the two largest operators mentioned in the following excerpt -
"These two corporations have become the giants of the private prison industry. Between 2016 and 2018, CoreCivic spent $2.8 million in lobbying and over $700,000 on campaign contributions while GEO Group spent $4.4 million in lobbying and $2.5 million on campaign contributions. Each company also donated $250,000 to Mr. Trump’s inauguration."
Surely by now you must be aware that nearly all of our Congressmen and women, are in Congress for their own financial benefit, period.
And the abomination pretending to be our President, making us the laughingstock of the world, he is nothing more than a conman and grifter, a carnival barker, a lowlife pimping out our nation to all comers.
9
@Mike None of them HAVE to be here. They can go back where they came from and good riddance.
A country built by slavery continues to prosper by border-line slavery. I'm actually not really surprised.
87
Most of us may never be able to retire, because the US population isn't growing fast enough, and there won't be enough younger people in the future to support the cost of the old.
We should develop a virtuous process whereby people who want to move the US can do so with few exceptions, and once they are here they are coached and supported on the way to citizenship.
It's in everyone's best interest.
30
@Amy
No doubt! Our population would be declining without imigration. Moreover, I would argue diversity is good for all of us! Better food, better education, better culture, better work force, better better better. The Neo - Natavists have it so wrong. White culture isn't empty materialism because of migrants. It's empty because that's what capitalism does: it becomes culture.
4
The irony of exploiting a free labor force comprised of people imprisoned because of the threat posed by their own exploitation is hopefully not lost on all.
56
This is no surprise. This has been going on for sometime in our prisons for violent and non-violent offenders alike. Sure the 13th Amendment makes slave labor legal for people incarcerated for criminal offenses, but that doesn't make it moral.
The scale of legal and illegal forced labor, well documented by activists like Chris Hedges, exists in our prisons, our detention centers for civilly committed immigrants and refugees, and in agriculture through unregulated contract employment.
The beneficiaries of this Neo Slavery are corporate for the most part. They are not only part of the kleptocracy allowed by the SCOTUS' Citizens United decision; they represent the corporate conservatives' wish to "make America Great Again". Sure this stuff was going on under Obama too; it has simply increased in scale since then.
It is part of the institutional rot that threatens the very essence of what America is. Children in detention centers. Their parents coerced into legal or illegal slavery or indentured servantry. Meanwhile Americans know their say in what America should be is drowned out by a system of legalised bribery that places the Executive, the Congress, and the Courts in corporate control.
The US will collapse from within because of this rot. These realities mark the beginning of the end in our struggle to prevent regression into a state that condones and facilitates slavery at the behest of powerful corporate interests.
49
Pass a law stating that minimum wage law applies to every laborer working on US soil *REGARDLESS OF IMMIGRATION STATUS.*
The only reason people hire illegals is because they can get away with paying them less. If you had a choice between hiring an American citizen or an undocumented worker but you had to pay them the same wage, which would you choose? The answer is obvious. No one opens themselves up to legal trouble when there's no benefit to doing so.
43
@Anthony Sounds good. Nothing will deter people like breaking our laws then getting paid to do it
We have better use of our tax dollars than spending it on people who flagrantly ignore US law.
3
@Anthony
Excellent point. If anything the companies using a non-citizen should have to pay MORE. There should be an extra payroll tax on non-citizen labor. Use the money to pay for the border patrol.
2
Well this just sounds like slavery with extra steps.
130
@Paul Actually Paul, Slavery is making Federal Workers show up for work for 5 weeks without pay. Hey, what do both of these examples have in common? What master mind is behind both of these?
9
@Paul Except nobody forced these people to come here. They deserve whatever they get.
The United States is no longer obligated by U.S. or international law to accept asylum requests presented at the U.S.-Mexico or U.S.-Canada borders. And it can immediately return illegal border crossers who request asylum to Mexico, The reason is that the United States now has an agreement (“Migrant Protection Protocols) with Mexico that is similar to its long-standing “third safe country” agreement with Canada.
The United States will continue to accept asylum requests made at legal port of entry. But last week, the United States began returning illegal border crossers who request asylum to Mexico. They will have to await decision on their asylum request in Mexico
As the agreement takes effect, the number of migrants waiting in U.S. detention centers for their asylum request to be processed will dramatically decline.
16
@William Case
With official crossing points processing at mos 100 imigrants a day, the backlogs are growing and growing. So much for the land of the free.
8
@Ann
Now that migrants know they will not be allowed to reside for years on the United States for years while their asylum applications are being processed, most will stop submitting asylum requests. Most expect their asylum requests to be rejected because they don't meet the criteria. What they want is to gore released into the United States with notifications to appear at hearings set I the distant future. They call the notifications to appear. About 80 percent of all asylum request are reject for the reason. So, they 80 precent would not longer haver a reason to apply for asylum
8
"Arbeit Mach Frei" - Works Makes YoU Free
These horrible words were part of NAZI Germany's final solution. To enslave and execute peoples, based upon their race and faith.
Apparently, not only is the US running concentration camps, under the approval of Trump, they are forcing people to work. And, if it weren't fro $1 a day, it would be considered violations of various treaties, the World Court and the UN.
A revolting development, and why each year Holocaust Day is remembered. And why we have Holocaust museums. So we never forget.
Apparently Trump, and his cronies, feel that enslavement, by nationality, is acceptable; it isn't.
114
@Nick Metrowsky
I meant:
"Arbeit Macht Frei"
I never thought a westernized nation, which is suppose to be a refuge from the horrors of the world, can allow its leaders to even use internment camps.
Though, the US did in WWI and WWII. People who were German (WWI) and Japanese (WWII). Now, with no war, people Hispanic and Native American descent are being put in concentration c amps and being used as forced labor.
Given the opportunity, Arabs and Muslims could be next. And, possibly journalists who speak out against these practices. Maybe Catholics next (though most of the so called "illegals are Catholic), Finally, anyone else who does.
The danger is not coming from Central America, it si coming from Trump, his cronies and his WASP, nationalist base.
16
@Nick Metrowsky
Your are right. This looks like what they did in Germany. Aha! This is what he means by MAGA!!
11
If any companies are violating the law, this should be rectified. However, beyond the need to maintain rule of law, I am not sure why I would care that criminals are forced to work at below minimum wave. They made the choice to break the law and we are then forced to house them at great expense. There's something almost masochistic about the never-ending attempt to blame us for the plight of illegal aliens.
19
@Josh Hill The article made clear that the people in detention are charged with no crime. They are just waiting in line to do it the legal way. And while they're waiting, they're being exploited. You should care. A lot.
124
@Josh Hill
The majority of prisoners in the US shouldn't even be prisoners. That's the difference. Maybe if we incarcerated levels of our own people consistent with levels in other democracies, but we don't.
Our prisons are now the default institution for the mentally ill, the homeless, and thoe suffering from addiction. The great majority of prisoners in state and federal pens have never been violent. Yet they are coerced into prison and slavery.
34
@Josh Hill
The people are being place din concentration camps. Some of this people are children. They are being forced to work for a $1 a day to skirt around both domestic and foreign slavery laws.
By the way, in NAZI Germany private companies did the same thing with those in concentration camps. For those not gassed and cremated, they were forced to work in mines, factories and repairing railroads. Those who could not worked were executed.
So to argue, because they are illegal aliens, and are criminals, is no different than saying what the big deal over a few Jews?
Sorry, Mr. Hill, this is not acceptable in the 21st century. It is illegal by international law. And, it illegal because of the US Constitution's 13th Amendment.
Finally it violates the Fair Labor Standards Act, which prohibits child labor.
18
Why pay anyone for their labor if you don’t have to? There’s only one rule in a capitalist state - buy cheap, sell dear.
1
Modern day slavery in the U.S.A. How on earth has it come to this? Victoria Law, please continue to research and get the word out regarding this and other issues surrounding immigrant detention. I am aghast and I will be contacting my Congressional representatives to ask them to address this grave human rights violation.
62
@Melissa M
The US Prison population is not paid minimum wage for work. US prisoners are contracted out to corporations to increase profit margins.
10
"If Congress instead forced these companies to pay the federal minimum wage, their profit margins would drop dramatically."
NO. Geo would merely increase their rates. They are probably indifferent what detainees get paid. They will just pass it on the Feds, aka taxpayers.
There is an excellent reason for these facilities to be owned by private sector companies: presumably, at some point, this country is going to regain control of its immigration system, diminishing the need for such facilities. When this happens, it will be much easier to cut off a private sector company than a Federal prison, staffed with unionized Federal employees.
7
@Kurfco Read the whole article. In the very next paragraph the author highlights the concern that costs would be passed on to the govt.
@Kurfco These people -YES, they are human beings - are being treated as criminals if not slaves. If these corporations can just “pass along the cost”, why don’t they? Same argument slaveholders used in the antebellum South. That battle was ended long, long ago - except, obviously not.
@Avi Black
Simple. Congress authorized $1. If the prison operator paid more than that they would not be compensated for it because the Feds wouldn't pay for it.
1
Congress can address this issue by creating a process where they would be deported very quickly if they don't qualify which the vast majority of them don't. Otherwise this practice should be eliminated.
11
@vulcanalex I’m interested to see your evidence that “...the vast majority of them don’t “.
8
@Avi Black
Approximately 20% of asylum requests are approved.
That doesn’t exactly mean that 80% are rejected, because a large number of asylum seekers never appear for their court hearing and smaller number appear to withdraw their asylum request.
https://www.justice.gov/eoir/file/1061586/download
3
I disagree that prison labor is "protected" by the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment says that "involuntary servitude" does not include prison labor, but it does not mandate prison labor. Congress could stop it, and it could stop the exploitation of immigrants in detention centers.
52