Items not much discussed are the cost of all this detention of illegal aliens and their children that is going on and the diversion of resources from drug smuggling. A result is this is a great time for the private prison business.
After years of privatization, the detention industry is well-positioned to capture a large portion of the estimated $2.8 billion spent to detain immigrants in the current fiscal year.
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The biggest contracts go to the for-profit prison companies that own and operate about two-thirds of ICE's detention capacity, including The Geo Group (GEO), CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corp. of America (CCA). (The other third of the system is made up of a collection of county and city jails that have entered into agreements with ICE to house immigrant detainees.)
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On any given day, the system houses roughly 40,000 people. The administration has asked Congress to increase funding to expand that capacity to 52,000.*
A side effect of the zero-tolerance crusade is taking away resources to prosecute drug smugglers.**
Federal prosecutors warned they were diverting resources from drug-smuggling cases in southern California to handle the flood of immigration charges brought on by the Trump administration’s border crackdown, records obtained by USA TODAY show.
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The District Attorney’s office in San Diego said Friday that the number of cases submitted to them by border authorities had more than doubled since the administration started its border crackdown. Spokeswoman Tanya Sierra said Homeland Security agents referred 96 drug cases to the office between May 21 and June 21, compared to 47 over the same period last year.**
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Still, there are signs that border authorities are seeking to prosecute drug smugglers in state courts instead, even though the possible sentences typically are harsher in the federal system.**
Incidentally, New York gets more of the detention funding than any other state except Texas.***
* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/22/ice-overspends-tax-dollars-on-a-detention-policy-many-americans-find-abhorrent.html
** https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/06/22/zero-tolerance-immigration-crackdown-diverting-resources-drug-cases/727532002/?csp=chromepush
*** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/22/ny-gets-more-funding-for-housing-young-migrants-than-any-state-except-texas.html
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