Anti-Immigrant Legislation Is A Boon For The Prison Industry

The Laken Riley Act is an assault on due process, undermining all of our rights to make for-profit prison CEOs richer.

By Sulma Arias, Institute for Policy Studies

You’re reading the words of a formerly undocumented immigrant.

When I fled El Salvador four decades ago, I was 12 years old and alone. I was escaping the country’s civil war, where U.S.-backed death squads had made murders and rape our daily reality.

I reunited with my sisters, my only surviving family, in Wichita, Kansas. Once there, I helped open churches, started businesses, and raised three daughters. There were times I wasn’t sure we’d make it to the end of the month, but I was grateful for the sense of peace and security we were able to create here.

That’s why I’m so alarmed that the new Republican-led Congress has chosen to open with a bill, H.R. 29, that strikes fear in the hearts of immigrant families all across the country. This bill would strip judges of discretion and require immigrants to be detained and subject to deportation if they’re accused — not even convicted — of even minor offenses like shoplifting.

This major assault on due process won’t keep anyone safer. It would terrorize all immigrants in this country, who studies show are much less likely to commit crimes of any kind than native-born Americans.

So who benefits from H.R. 29? Private prison corporations like CoreCivic and GEO Group, who made a fortune during the last Trump administration by running private prisons for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

CoreCivic and GEO kept immigrants and asylum seekers in inhumane and toxic conditions with poor hygiene and exposed women and children to sexual predators. Under this new law, cynical executives will siphon off more public dollars, and wealthy investors will reap more rewards, from abusing and demonizing people seeking refuge from violence or poverty.

When Trump won, private prison stocks soared. Why? Because investors anticipated making a fortune detaining immigrants. More than 90 percent of migrants detained by ICE end up in for-profit facilities.