Letter: Private prisons boom while migrants suffer

Wednesday October 10, 2018
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Current practices are unacceptable.

Editor:
With all the dramatic headlines lately, it's easy to miss really important things. Like The New York Times' report that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is picking up hundreds of migrant kids from their foster homes in the middle of the night and taking them to temporary tent prisons. They go from sleeping in a bedroom, having a bathroom and getting schooling to sleeping 20 per wire enclosure, temporary toilet facilities and no school.

During the Obama administration, contracts with private prisons were not renewed because the Bureau of Prisons inspector general found unsatisfactory conditions, including sanitation problems and increased assaults. These tent prisons are almost all built by Core Civic and GEO Corp., which The Washington Post says contributed $250,000 each to the Trump Inaugural Committee. They now find themselves with steadily increasing contracts. Safer federal prisons are being downsized to save money so unsafe, unsanitary, more expensive private prisons can be built to benefit big political contributors.

CNN reports the extra expense of these private prisons is covered by taking $260 million out of cancer research, the National Institutes of Health, HIV/AIDS programs and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Bloomberg News reports that immigrants are a long-term economic boon to America, contributing more than average Americans do toward any benefits they receive over decades.

Even those who care more about money than humanity should find this unacceptable.
Susan Shaak
St. Lawrence
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Private prisons boom while migrants suffer