How does the Closing of Private Prisons Affect Undocumented Immigrants?

Since President Biden took office on Jan. 20, the number of undocumented immigrants in detention centers has increased by over 50 percent. 

On Jan. 26, just six days after his inauguration, Biden signed the Executive Order on Reforming Our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities.

This executive order was an initial attempt to reduce mass incarceration caused by the private prison industry by stopping the renewal of federal contracts with corporations that run private prisons. However, the order has several loopholes. First, it only banned federal -contracts with private prisons, allowing space for current contractors like Core Civic and The GEO Group to attempt to renew their contracts with states once they run out with the federal government. Another major loophole is that the order only stopped contracts with the federal government within the Department of Justice. This means that the order did not apply to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which falls under the Department of Homeland Security.

As these federal contracts start to expire, corporations profiting from privately-run prisons scramble to find ways to sustain their same levels of income and fill the open beds in their prisons. One way that they have done this is through increased levels and lengths of detainment by ICE. These corporations make money from ICE arrests in the same way that they do with prisons: through payment from the government and running the facilities like a business, which means cutting costs whenever possible. Individuals in private prisons and detainment centers are forced to pay for their own amenities, which the corporations then further abuse by overcharging. They also cut costs by understaffing facilities, making them more dangerous.

How do the corporations that run private prisons impact arrest rates? One way that this has previously been done is through illegal kickbacks given to judges to incentivize more arrests. These corporations also pay to be members of organizations that work with politicians to develop laws governing immigration and arrestable offenses. Since these corporations run a multi-billion dollar industry, they exist in a position of power that they can easily exploit for personal gain.

As more and more of these federal contracts expire, private prison corporations will continue to make an effort to fill these beds with undocumented immigrants and ensuring that ICE detainment facilities remain filled. The lives and freedom of undocumented immigrants should not be decided by profit-chasing corporations.

The Biden Administration should take further steps to end the private prison industry by working to terminate contracts between private prisons and the Department of Homeland Security. Better paths can be created to monitor undocumented immigrants and work towards legal immigration instead of detainment.

Use your voting and vocal power as a citizen of your state to elect officials who will follow the lead of the federal government and put an end to the private prison industry.

Learn more about mass incarceration and the prison industry in other Novel Hand articles by Olivia Starks and Eleanor Tyson.