GEO GROUP 2
===
2 big co, w/ CCA --> core civic
ballroom corrupt 3 inaug maralago
BONDI LOBBYIST, BIG 1ST TRUMP DONOR
BARRACK
HOMAN REV DOOR
SEE MASS DEPORTATION
TRUMP PARDON, NJ MAYOR ARRESTED crony cap’l DELANY HALL 1B$/YR?!
see PIC
disaster capitalism, ICE, opioids
corp bad actor
baby jail pending
lobbyist wiles trujullo ballard
drucker rick scott leadership superpac
bak 619
---
geo pardon? mta video
---
drucker
Geo Group
| Project Rescue America | $25,000 | $0 | $25,000 | Outside Group | Outside |
GEO GROUP 2
| Project Rescue America | $25,000 | $0 | $25,000 | Outside Group | Outside |
The $500,000 contribution that GEO Group gave to Make America Great Again, a pro-Trump super PAC, came from a subsidiary called GEO Acquisition II Inc. That same subsidiary made another sizable contribution last December to Project Rescue America, a super PAC that supports Senator Rick Scott, who was one of eight senators who voted against certifying the 2020 election.
Hardworking Ams
Kemp staffs up PAC with eye toward boosting national profile
POLITICO Forecast
Hardworking Americans Inc PAC Expenditures
Project Rescue America
Jenny Sheffield Drucker
Experience
| 2 | Project Rescue America | $646,816 | 25 | 2023-04-20 | 2024-12-23 |
---
AN
3 26 ....
"GEO Group and several other companies in government contracting have complained to officials in Trump’s inner circle that Lewandowski, as a special government employee, has directly or indirectly stood to personally profit from the DHS contracting process, according to four senior White House officials," the report said, citing a former White House official.
Another top White House official told NBC News that there had been a “dozen” complaints about Lewandowski from at least four companies. All of them cite Lewandowski's involvement in the contracting process and all of them have allegations against the former aide.
gmail 10 25 mov on corp accttbility alert
But while some everyday people and local leaders have stepped up to protect their neighbors against these inhumane abuses of power, others have looked away in cowardice. Or worse, have been complicit.
Mark Walter—the owner of the LA Dodgers—is also the CEO of Guggenheim Partners, a huge corporation that invests more than $345 billion for other big corporations, wealthy individuals, and pension funds. And as CEO, he is investing money into the GEO Group, one of the largest operators of ICE jails.1
---
HOMAN REV DOOR
[### Trump's border czar consulted for immigrant detention firm ...
The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com › business › 2025/05/27](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/27/border-czar-ethics-consulting-fees/)
May 27, 2025 — Newly released disclosure shows Tom Homan previously consulted for the Geo Group, a key contractor in the administration's mass deportation agenda.
[### Tom Homan's financial ties to private prison locking up ...
MSNBC News
https://www.msnbc.com › top-stories › latest › trump-b...](https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-border-tom-homan-private-prison-immigrants-rcna209544)
May 28, 2025 — Before he joined the administration, border czar Tom Homan earned an undisclosed amount in fees consulting for a division of the Geo Group, one ...
[### Trump Border Czar Tom Homan's Cash-In With Key ICE ...
The Daily Beast
https://www.thedailybeast.com › trumps-border-czar-tom...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-border-czar-tom-homan-profited-from-top-ice-contractor-before-white-house-gig/)
May 27, 2025 — Prior to leading Trump's mass deportation push, Homan collected consulting fees from the GEO Group—one of two companies that run a majority of ...
[### Tom Homan
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Tom_Homan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Homan)
Homan received at least $5,000 in consulting fees from GEO Group in the two years before he joined the second Trump administration. GEO Group is ...
[### NowThis - Georgia has struck a deal with the private prison ...
Facebook · NowThis Impact
9.9K+ reactions · 3 weeks ago](https://m.facebook.com/nowthisimpact/photos/georgia-has-struck-a-deal-with-the-private-prison-firm-geo-group-inc-to-create-t/1126975842800912/)
Georgia has struck a deal with the private prison firm Geo Group Inc. to create the nation's largest facility specifically for ICE detainees.
[### Private Prison Giant Hired ICE Detention Chief
Project On Government Oversight (POGO)
https://www.pogo.org › Investigations](https://www.pogo.org/investigations/private-prison-giant-hired-ice-detention-chief)
Jan 17, 2025 — A top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official left to take a senior job at The GEO Group, a private prison company and the agency's top contractor.
[### Tom Homan's financial ties to private prison locking up ...
Yahoo
https://www.yahoo.com › news › tom-homans-financial...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/tom-homans-financial-ties-private-210908616.html)
May 28, 2025 — Before he joined the administration, border czar Tom Homan earned an undisclosed amount in fees consulting for a division of the Geo Group, one ...
[### Trump's Border Czar Recently Consulted for Immigrant ...
Truthout
https://truthout.org › Articles › News](https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-border-czar-recently-consulted-for-immigrant-detention-center-operator/)
May 28, 2025 — Tom Homan disclosed consulting fees from GEO Group, one of the largest immigrant jail operators in the US.
[### May 1, 2025 David Donahue Chief Executive Officer The GEO ...
Senate Committee on the Judiciary (.gov)
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov › media › doc](https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2025-05-01%20Letter%20to%20GEO%20Group.pdf)
May 1, 2025 — ... GEO Group, Press Release, The GEO Group. Awarded 15-Year Contract by ... ”14 Tom Homan, President. Trump's Executive Associate Director ...
5 pages
---
leadership pacs, outside groups
GEO Group
Top Affiliates: GEO Care · BI Inc · Geo Acquisition II
Cycle:
2024
Contributions
RanksMore info
274 of 40,455
$3,718,518
Lobbying
RanksMore info
541 of 9,200 in 2024
$1,380,000
in 2024
$1,250,000
in 2023
Outside Spending
$0
| make America Great Again Inc | $1,000,000 | $0 | $1,000,000 | Outside Group | Outside | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Congressional Leadership Fund | $775,000 | $0 | $775,000 | Carey | Carey | |
| Senate Leadership Fund | $500,000 | $0 | $500,000 | Outside Group | Outside | |
| Right for America | $250,000 | $0 | $250,000 | Outside Group | Outside | |
| GOPAC | $165,000 | $0 | $165,000 | 527 | 527 | |
| National Republican Congressional Cmte | $119,188 | $119,188 | $0 | Political Party | Party | |
| Trump, Donald | $78,124 | $78,124 | $0 | Candidate (R-PRES) | Cand | |
| Republican National Cmte | $72,318 | $22,318 | $50,000 | Political Party | Party | |
| Scott, Rick | $66,900 | $66,900 | $0 | Candidate (R-FLS1) | Cand | Senate |
| National Republican Senatorial Cmte | $55,755 | $755 | $55,000 | Political Party | Party | |
| Joyce, David P | $47,900 | $42,900 | $5,000 | Candidate (R-OH14) | Cand | House |
| DeSantis, Ron | $31,530 | $31,530 | $0 | Candidate (R-PRES) | Cand | |
| Scalise, Steve | $29,562 | $29,562 | $0 | Candidate (R-LA01) | Cand | House |
| Save America | $28,358 | $23,358 | $5,000 | LeadPAC | LeadPAC | |
| Oklahoma Victory Cmte | $25,000 | $0 | $25,000 | Outside Group | Outside | |
| Project Rescue America | $25,000 | $0 | $25,000 | Outside Group | Outside | |
| Cuellar, Henry | $24,200 | $19,200 | $5,000 | Candidate (D-TX28) | Cand | House |
| Lake, Kari | $20,827 | $20,827 | $0 | Candidate (R-AZS2) | Cand | Senate |
| Great American Comeback | $20,700 | $20,700 | $0 | LeadPAC | LeadPAC | |
| Lets Get to Work PAC | $16,800 | $16,800 | $0 | Carey | Carey | |
| Green, Mark | $15,300 | $15,300 | $0 | Candidate (R-TN07) | Cand | House |
| Majority Cmte PAC | $15,000 | $10,000 | $5,000 | Carey | Carey | |
| Donalds, Byron | $14,000 | $11,000 | $3,000 | Candidate (R-FL19) | Cand | House |
| McCarthy, Kevin | $12,135 | $7,135 | $5,000 | Candidate (R-CA20) | Cand | House |
| Britt, Katie Boyd | $10,000 | $0 | $10,000 | Candidate (R-ALS2) | Cand | Senate |
---
raw story
Criminal corporations are not people — but Trump just pardoned one anyway - Raw Story
In what could be a U.S. first, President Donald Trump last week pardoned a criminal corporation, a move that largely flew under the proverbial radar amid his pardon spree for white-collar criminals including at least one of his supporters.
On March 28, Trump pardoned HDR Global Trading, the owner and operator of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX; company co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed; and former business development chief Gregory Dwyer.
The company and the four men hads each pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act "by willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate" anti-money laundering program, as required by law. In January, the U.S. Department of Justice sentenced BitMEX to a fine of $100 million, while the executives were sentenced to criminal probation and ordered to pay civil fines.
While experts noted that Trump acted within his rights to pardon the corporation, there is no known precedent for a president taking such action.
Noting the U.S. Supreme Court's highly controversial 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling—which affirmed corporate personhood and the dubious notion that unlimited outside spending on political campaigns is free speech—Stanford Law School professor Bernadette Meyler toldThe Intercept that "while we have seen the rise of a trend of treating corporations as persons in other areas of law, we haven't seen that so far in the area of pardoning."
Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and preeminent pardons expert, wrote for The Hill on Tuesday that the BitMEX pardons send the message that "companies involved in financial crimes don't have to worry about accountability under this president, as least when it comes to crypto, for reasons that he has no incentive to ever make known."
"BitMEX can continue its prior criminal practices with federal impunity, and maybe even rely on the pardon to thwart future investigations into related conduct by federal lawmakers or state prosecutors," Wehle added. "The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people, including the more than 77 million who might finally be realizing that they voted for lawlessness last November."
"The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people."
Brandon Garrett, a Duke University law professor specializing in corporate crime and punishment, told The Interceptthat the BitMEX pardons are part of a wider pattern of impunity under Trump, who "now seems to be systematically pardoning corporate malefactors left and right without respect, really, to any real serious consideration about the merits of the cases [or] the larger policy implications of issuing these pardons."
As the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen recently noted, "The Trump administration has dropped, withdrawn, or halted investigations and enforcement actions against over 100 corporations in its first two months in office."
Beneficiaries include companies owned or led by Trump donors or allies, including private prison giant GEO Group; Zelle network banks JPMorgan and Bank of America; crypto firms Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, OpenSea, Ripple, and Robinhood; and Elon Musk's SpaceX.
:{"Trump's corporate pardons show the president's true base is the :{[### Private prison behemoth is first corporation to max out ...}:
[### Private Prison Companies Are Raking in Profits From ...
Truthout
https://truthout.org › Articles › News Analysis](https://truthout.org/articles/private-prison-companies-are-raking-in-profits-from-increased-deportations/)
Apr 26, 2025 — ... Bondi lobbied for GEO Group while she worked at Ballad Partners, for which she was paid $390,000. The majority of GEO Group's lobbyists in ...billionaire executives and corporate elites lining up to indulge their greed at the trough of Trump's corruption," Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool said last week. "Trump's soft-on-corporate crime approach invites a corporate crime spree and potentially catastrophic abuses for America's consumers, workers, and communities."}:
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman added that the Trump administration's "effective no-enforcement policy against corporations virtually guarantees more financial scams, more workplace discrimination, more poisoning of the air and water, more food contamination, more fraud, more disease, and more preventable death."
---
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
https://www.citizensforethics.org › crew-investigations](https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/private-prison-behemoth-is-first-corporation-to-max-out-to-trump/)
Jul 3, 2024 — The private prison behemoth GEO Group became the first corporation whose PAC maxed out to former President Donald Trump's campaign in late February.
CREW
The private prison behemoth GEO Group became the first corporation whose PAC maxed out to former President Donald Trump’s campaign in late February, according to a CREW analysis of campaign finance records. That same month, the company used a subsidiary to give an additional $500,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC.
The $5,000 contribution that GEO Group’s PAC gave to Trump’s campaign was part of a larger $15,000 contribution it gave to the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, a PAC that raises money for Trump’s campaign and his leadership PAC, Save America, which has spent tens of millions of dollars on Trump’s legal bills. On the same day, the JFC also reported receiving two contributions of $11,600 each from two GEO Group executives, founder and board chairman George Zoley and CEO Brian Evans.
The $500,000 contribution that GEO Group gave to Make America Great Again, a pro-Trump super PAC, came from a subsidiary called GEO Acquisition II Inc. That same subsidiary made another sizable contribution last December to Project Rescue America, a super PAC that supports Senator Rick Scott, who was one of eight senators who voted against certifying the 2020 election.
Trump and Scott are not outliers in GEO Group’s political giving. Since the January 6 insurrection, GEO Group’s PAC has donated to more than 32 members of the Sedition Caucus—the 147 members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election and, later, the 22 new members who won in the 2022 midterms promoting the Big Lie that the election was stolen. In all, the company’s PAC has given more than $266,000 to these members and the two party committees that support them, the NRSC and the NRCC.
GEO Group has a long history of disproportionately supporting Trump and other Republican candidates. In the midst of the 2016 presidential election, the Justice Department announced a plan to phase out the use of private prisons. The day after this announcement, GEO Group donated $100,000 to Rebuilding America Now, a pro-Trump super PAC, through a subsidiary. In November 2016, the company donated another $125,000. Earlier that year, the company’s PAC contributed an additional $50,000 to the same super PAC. After Trump won the election, GEO Group donated $250,000 to his inauguration committee. Inevery election cycle since 2004, besides 2008 and 2010, the company’s PAC donated tens of thousands—and at times hundreds of thousands—more to Republican candidates than their Democratic counterparts.
Beyond its political donations, GEO Group has also lined Trump’s pockets by spending at Trump businesses. In 2017, the company broke tradition and held its conference at Trump Doral rather than its own headquarters, and its Vice President had stayed at Trump’s DC Hotel at least 10 times by June 2019.
While GEO Group’s profits from the federal government have continued to grow under the Biden administration, the number of new contracts awarded to the company is dramatically less than in the Trump administration. In fiscal year 2017, the company received 40 new contracts. In fiscal year 2020, the last full year of Trump’s administration, it received 87—a record high, and more than it’s been granted during any year of Biden’s time in office. If re-elected, Trump has also promised to carry out an extreme immigration agenda that includes detaining undocumented people already in the United States in “vast holding facilities” yet to be built.
---
GGL 6 25 LOBBYING
[### Pam Bondi will face an ethics quagmire as attorney general
Politico
https://www.politico.com › news › 2024/12/07 › pam-b...](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/07/pam-bondi-doj-ethics-00192890)
Dec 7, 2024 — Bondi has also lobbied for the GEO Group, a major private prison company that is paid hundreds of millions of dollars each year by the ...
Pam Bondi's Extensive Lobbying For Wealt...
Senate Judiciary Committee (.gov)
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov › press › dem › releases](https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/dem/releases/pam-bondis-extensive-lobbying-for-wealthy-special-interests-and-foreign-government-poses-serious-conflict-of-interest)
Jan 15, 2025 — Lobbying on behalf of private prisons: Bondi lobbied for The GEO Group, a private prison company that has faced criticism for safety ...
[### Trump's AG Pick Pam Bondi Lobbied for Private Prisons ...
The Intercept
https://theintercept.com › 2024/11/22 › trumps-new-ag-...](https://theintercept.com/2024/11/22/trumps-new-ag-pick-lobbied-for-private-prisons-and-amazon/)
Nov 22, 2024 — Pam Bondi has replaced Matt Gaetz in Trump's attorney general slot. Her lobbying clients include the GEO Group, among many others.
[### Durbin Demands Attorney General Bondi To Recuse ...
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (.gov)
https://www.durbin.senate.gov › newsroom › press-releases](https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-demands-attorney-general-bondi-to-recuse-herself-from-any-work-benefitting-private-prison-company-due-to-conflicts-of-interest)
May 2, 2025 — Durbin Demands Attorney General Bondi To Recuse Herself From Any Work Benefitting Private Prison Company Due To Conflicts Of Interest. Durbin ...
[### NIJC Opposes Nomination of Pam Bondi to be Attorney ...
National Immigrant Justice Center
https://immigrantjustice.org › staff › blog › nijc-oppose...](https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/nijc-opposes-nomination-pam-bondi-be-attorney-general-united-states)
Jan 17, 2025 — Bondi's problematic role as a lobbyist for the country's largest private prison company, GEO Group, as recently as 2019. GEO Group has ...
[### NIJC statement opposing the nomination Pam Bondi
National Immigrant Justice Center
https://immigrantjustice.org › no-content-type](https://immigrantjustice.org/sites/default/files/uploaded-files/no-content-type/2025-01/NIJC-statement-opposing-AG-nomination-Pam-Bondi_Jan2025.pdf)
Jan 17, 2025 — Partners, she worked as a lobbyist for the country's largest private prison company, GEO Group, as recently as 2019.1. The private prison ...
4 pages
[### Private Prison Company GEO Group “Excited” About Mass ...
The Appeal
https://theappeal.org › geo-group-earnings-may-mass-d...](https://theappeal.org/geo-group-earnings-may-mass-deportation/)
May 7, 2025 — Pam Bondi, the U.S. Attorney General, is a former GEO Group lobbyist. The company is under contract with ICE for 16,000 beds, which Donahue said ...
[### Conflicted Justice
Public Citizen
https://www.citizen.org › Articles](https://www.citizen.org/article/conflicted-justice/)
Jan 8, 2025 — Lobbying reports filed in 2019 disclosed that, while Bondi was registered to lobby for The Geo Group, her lobbying firm was paid $60,000 by The ...
[### Pam Bondi Lobbying Profile - Lobbyists
OpenSecrets
https://www.opensecrets.org › lobbyists › summary](https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/lobbyists/summary?id=Y0000055471L)
Pam Bondi is a lobbyist who lobbied for 16 clients in 2019. See the details.
[### Pam Bondi and the Pay-to-Play Justice System
The American Prospect
https://prospect.org › justice › 2025-01-14-pam-bondi-...](https://prospect.org/justice/2025-01-14-pam-bondi-pay-to-play-justice-system/)
Jan 14, 2025 — GEO Group, the private prison company that stands to gain heavily from the policies of mass deportation, was another Bondi client; DOJ has ...
[### Pam Bondi will face an ethics quagmire as attorney general
Politico
https://www.politico.com › news › 2024/12/07 › pam-b...](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/07/pam-bondi-doj-ethics-00192890)
Dec 7, 2024 — Bondi has also lobbied for the GEO Group, a major private prison company that is paid hundreds of millions of dollars each year by the ...
---
EXCITED BY TRUMP RE ELECTION? DONOR?
POLITICO
New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka arrested at ICE facility
The Democrat, who is also running for governor, was involved in a scrum with three members of Congress seeking a tour of Delaney Hall.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was detained while at Delaney Hall, a facility to house migrants. | Seth Wenig/AP
By Ry Rivard
05/09/2025
NEWARK, New Jersey — The mayor of New Jersey’s largest city, who is also a Democratic candidate for governor, was handcuffed and detained by federal officials on Friday at a protest ofan immigration detention centerfollowing a scrum involving federal agents and three members of Congress seeking a tour of the facility.
The arrest followed a chaotic scene in the detention facility’s parking lot involving protesters, federal law enforcement officers and the three Democratic members — Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and LaMonica McIver — at Delaney Hall. It is the Trump administration’s newest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, which is expected to play a major role in its Northeast immigration operations.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was being held at a separate ICE field office in his own city as elected Democrats in New Jersey scrambled to get him released.
House members, protesters clash with authorities at New Jersey ICE facility
Play Video
The members of Congress all said they were touched to varying degrees and, in one case, assaulted by federal authorities at the facility.
“This most assuredly is the most discomforting, concerning visit we have had. And what we experienced was the weaponization, of the abuse of power, that this administration has given ICE to do,” Watson Coleman said. “ICE is out of control.”
The mayor and the three members of Congress had been visiting Delaney Hall hoping to inspect conditions inside. While the members were inside, Baraka waited in a fenced in parking lot at the facility while protesters gathered outside the fence.
The roughly 1,000-bed facility just recently started taking detainees. The Baraka administration has tried to prevent it from opening, taking the private prison operator that runs the facility to court and alleging it does not have proper city permits.
The detention unfolded after Baraka was apparently allowed inside the fenced parking lot at the facility and then later told to leave.
The three House members had been inside the facility waiting for a tour [for two hours?] but then came out after officers wearing gear that identified them variously as federal police, ICE and Homeland Security personnel began gathering near Baraka in the parking lot. At one point, the three Democratic members came out as authorities threatened to arrest Baraka. They all exited to a parking lot outside the fence where protesters had gathered in an attempt to defuse the situation and to avoid Baraka getting arrested.
The three members then reentered the fenced area while Baraka waited outside the fence, but Menendez quickly came back and warned Baraka that the authorities still wanted to arrest him. When Menendez came to warn Baraka, he looked through the fence and told the mayor, “They are talking about coming out to arrest you.”
Later, Menendez told POLITICO that he’d witnessed an agent inside the fenced area talking on the phone with someone who told the agent to arrest Baraka, who by then was outside of the fenced area. McIver gave a similar account in a press conference.
Then law enforcement officials all came out, setting off a scrum in the parking lot area outside the fence, with Baraka and 80-year-old Watson Coleman near its middle.
It was a chaotic scene.
The group then moved to reenter the fenced-in area as Baraka was handcuffed and detained.
The interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Alina Habba, confirmed that Baraka was in custody.
“The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon,” shewrote on X. “He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.”
But the members of Congress also said they had been touched.
McIver, who represents Newark, said she and her colleagues came to the facility for a “simple oversight visit” but they had to wait about two hours to get inside. She and Watson Coleman were “assaulted” and Menendez was “roughed up” afterward. Menendez said that “all of us were touched,” calling what happened to McIver an “assault.”
As they reached the gate after the scrum to reenter the secure area of the facility, Menendez said he witnessed a federal law enforcement official assault McIver.
“It was a complete shove,” Menendez said in an interview.
McIver gave a similar account.
But even after that, the three members of Congress continued inside the secure area and received a tour. None of the members said they witnessed deplorable conditions at the facility, but by then the mayor’s arrest had overtaken the inspection.
“What we just witnessed was disgusting,” McIver told reporters. “If they can treat three members of Congress like that, just imagine how they can treat people on the street each and every day.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, described the events differently. It said in a statement that as a bus of detainees was entering the security gate of Delaney Hall a group of protesters and two members of Congress — Menendez and Watson Coleman — “stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.”
:{MOST READ
- ### Judges warn Trump’s mass deportations could lay groundwork to ensnare Americans
- ### RFK Jr., DOGE gutted legally required offices. Courts may undo it all.
- ### ‘It’s time for Joe Biden to go away': Democrats are triggered by Biden’s return to the spotlight
- ### Qatar calls reports of pending jet gift to Trump ‘inaccurate’
- ### Republicans’ partial tax plan estimated to cost $5 trillion
“These members of Congress storming into a detention facility goes beyond bizarre political stunt and puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and the detainees at risk,” the agency said. “Members of Congress are not above the law and cannot illegally break into detention facilities. Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated a tour of the facility. This is an evolving situation.”
protesters on the scene, which included members of the SEIU union, began moving to the field office across town when they learned Barak was being taken there.
By late afternoon, the three members of Congress reassembled at the field office and began pushing back against claims that they had stormed the facility. At least 100 protesters remained outside the facility in the rain Friday evening, chanting “free Ras Baraka.”
Baraka, astaunch progressive and one of six Democrats running for governor this year, has been a vocal opponent of the Trump administration’s plans for the immigration detention facility. While other Democratic candidates have spoken out against the Trump administration’s recent immigration actions, none have done so as forcefully as Baraka. He took part in a rally against the reopening of the facility in March — footage of which hasappeared in his campaign ads — and has been “demanding entry” into Delaney Hall throughout the week since its opening.
Newark, which is home to a diverse population, previously filed a complaint with the Essex County Superior Court, alleging that ICE was planning to open Delaney Hall “without following proper building safety protocols.” (DHS told POLITICO in a statement that the facility has “valid permits and inspection from plumbing, electricity to fire codes has been cleared.”) GEO Group, the private prison contractor that owns the facility, has accused the legal action of being “politically motivated.” GEO Group referred POLITICO to ICE for comment.
At the March rally, Baraka told reporters that he would “love to see action” from his fellow Democratic candidates regarding immigration.
“They say they are against the detention facility in Newark, and that’s the talk,” Baraka said at the time. “I would love to see them out to help us in this effort. I mean, it is a competition, so maybe they feel like coming here supports me. I don’t know what it is. I can’t speak for them, but I would love to see them out here.”
The arrest puts Baraka in the national spotlight with a month to go before the June 10 primary. Just two hours after he was led away in handcuffs, Baraka’s campaign sent out a text message asking for donations. “Ras was at Delaney Hall today demanding entry into the ICE detention center where Trump and MAGA extremists are illegally detaining people,” it read. “Ras is ready to do whatever it takes to stop Trump and to protect New Jerseyans from his extreme agenda. We need you with us now more than ever.”
Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement he was “outraged by the unjust arrest” of Baraka. The governor noted that he signed a law several years ago that aims to ban private immigration detention facilities, but the law has not been enforced amid a pending lawsuit.
“Mayor Baraka is an exemplary public servant who has always stood up for our most vulnerable neighbors,” he said. “I am calling for his immediate release by federal law enforcement.”
The arrest alarmed other pro-immigrant activists who were in attendance.
“If they can do this to a mayor that has a profile as large as Mayor Baraka, what are they going to do to people protesting at Tesla stores?” said Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice.
Other Democratic candidates running for governor condemned the arrest. Rep. Mikie Sherrillcalled it an “absolute outrage,” while Steven Fulop, mayor of Jersey City,said it was “a dangerous precedent — and it demands condemnation in the strongest possible terms.” Former state Senate President Steve Sweeney called for his release, as did Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who said that Delaney Hall has “an environment ripe with mistreatment and abuse.”
New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller said that he will go to Delaney Hall tomorrow, and called on the other candidates to join him “in standing together for justice.”
Meanwhile, Republicans attacked Baraka. Bob Hugin, the state Republican Party chair, warned that Baraka would be a governor “who puts political theater ahead of public safety and the rule of law.” The GOP gubernatorial hopefuls also went after him, with former radio host Bill Spadea saying that he “should be embarrassed by his behavior” and former Assemblymember Jack Ciattarelli calling Baraka “shameful.”
“In Newark, the airport is in the midst of an unprecedented & dangerous meltdown, the public schools are failing students & families, and there is crime in the streets every day,” Ciattarelli wrote. “And yet its Mayor and leading Democrat candidate for Governor … is busy shilling for illegal Immigrants at an ICE detention center with a cheap publicity stunt.”
*Madison Fernandez and Daniel Han contributed to this report.
- Filed under:
- New Jersey,
- Ras Baraka,
- Immigration And Customs Enforcement,
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AN PP 3 25
The for-profit prison company GEO Group has surged in value under President Donald Trump. Investors are betting big on immigration detention. Its stock price doubled after Election Day.
But despite its soaring fortunes, the $4 billion company continues to resist having to pay detainees more than $1 a day for cleaning facilities where the government has forced them to live.
At the 1,575-bed detention center GEO runs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tacoma, Washington, detainees once prepared meals, washed laundry and scrubbed toilets, doing jobs that would otherwise require 85 full-time employees, the company estimated. The state’s minimum wage at the time was $11 an hour. (It’s now $16.66.) In 2017, Washington sued GEO to enforce it, and in October 2021 a federal jury ruled unanimously in the state’s favor.
This year, GEO and Washington are back in court — for a third time — as the company tries to reverse the earlier decision that sided with the state. GEO has brought in contract cleaners at the Tacoma facility while the case plays out, keeping detainees there from paid work and from having a way to earn commissary money.
The legal battle has national repercussions as the number of ICE detainees around the country rises to its highest level in five years. The vast majority are held in private facilities run by GEO or corporate competitors like CoreCivic. If following state minimum wages becomes the norm, Trump’s immigration crackdown could cost the country even more than it otherwise would — unless private detention centers absorb the cost themselves or decide to cut back on cleaning, which Tacoma detainees have already accused GEO of doing.
GEO frames the lawsuit as a fight over the federal government’s authority to make the laws of the nation. Multiple courts have decided that the Fair Labor Standards Act, which sets the federal minimum wage, does not apply to detained migrants. At issue in the Tacoma case is the state minimum wage.
“Simply put, we believe the State of Washington has unconstitutionally violated the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution,” GEO wrote in a news release.
The company did not respond to a request for comment from ProPublica. ICE and CoreCivic declined to comment.
GEO’s latest legal salvo came last month.
A three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had recently affirmed lower courts’ rulings. GEO had to pay state minimum wage at the Tacoma facility. The company was also ordered to hand over $17 million in back wages, plus $6 million for “unjust enrichment.” The combined penalties amounted to less than 1 percent of GEO’s total revenues in 2024.
Rather than pay up, GEO petitioned on Feb. 6 for a rehearing by the full 9th Circuit. In the news release, it vowed to “vigorously pursue all available appeals.”
It isn’t that GEO lacks the ability to pay, the company has made clear in legal filings. Its gross profit from its Tacoma facility, today called the Northwest ICE Processing Center, was about $20 million a year when Washington filed its lawsuit. The company told a judge in 2021 it could “pay the Judgments twenty times over.”
The real issue is the precedent the Tacoma case could set. GEO, which manages 16 ICE detention facilities across the country, faces similar lawsuits in California and Colorado. The California case, also before the 9th Circuit, is on hold pending the outcome of Washington’s. Colorado’s is winding its way through a lower court.
GEO is expected to fight the case all the way to the Supreme Court, if needed.
If eventually forced to pay state minimum wages across the country, the company could decide to pay detainees more or else hire outside employees at all its locations – either of which would potentially eat into its profits, stock price and dividends.
The company also could try to renegotiate its long-term contracts with ICE for a higher rate of reimbursement, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, an expert in incarceration, noted in an article for the Brennan Center for Justice.
Or GEO could respond to higher labor costs another way. After the jury decision against it in 2021, the company paused Tacoma’s Voluntary Work Program, as it is known, rather than pay detainees there minimum wage. Some could no longer afford phone calls to family members. (For such detainees, the program had never been entirely voluntary. “I need the money desperately,” one testified. “I have no choice.”)
The facility also “got really gross” after the sudden stoppage, a Mexican detainee told the Associated Press at the time. “Nobody cleaned anything.”
GEO brought in contract cleaners eventually.
Mike Faulk, a spokesperson for the Washington state attorney general’s office, said testimony in the minimum-wage issue highlights the problem with housing detainees in private prisons: profit motive. Not only did GEO pay $1 a day for cleaning in Tacoma, it budgeted less than $1 per meal that each detainee ate, one kitchen worker testified. “So the grade of food is abysmal,” Faulk said of the detainee’s testimony. “He routinely picked out grasshoppers/insects from the food.”
For its part, GEO argues that Washington wants to unfairly — and hypocritically — hold the Tacoma facility to a standard that even state facilities don’t have to meet. The company has noted that a carveout in Washington law exempts state prisons from minimum-wage requirements, allowing the state to pay prisoners no more than $40 a week. The federal government, taking GEO’s side, has made the same point in “friend of the court” briefs under both the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. So did a dissenting judge in the recent 9th Circuit decision.
But to liken state prisons to a privately run immigration facility is an “apples and oranges” comparison, the 9th Circuit decided. Washington doesn’t let private companies run its state prisons. And the migrants in Tacoma are detained under civil charges, not as convicted criminals.
As judges have noted, GEO’s contract with ICE states that the prison company must follow “all applicable federal, state, and local laws and standards,” including “labor laws and codes.” It also holds that GEO must pay detainees at least $1 a day for the Voluntary Work Program. The federal government “made a deliberate choice to dictate to GEO the minimum rate,” the 9th Circuit wrote in its most recent decision, but “it also made a deliberate choice not to dictate to GEO a maximum rate.”
Conditions in Tacoma are worsening as the number of detainees rises, according to Maru Mora Villalpando, founder of the activist group La Resistencia. The group is in regular contact with people inside the detention center.
Meal service, Mora Villalpando said, is faltering: “Dinner used to be at 5. Then 6. Now it’s 9.”
Cleaning is faltering, too, she said. Without detainee labor, the outside cleaners have to do it all.
“But these people,” Mora Villalpando said, “can’t keep up.”
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Private prison companies in the United States can hardly contain their excitement as the Trump administration moves to revive the practice of detaining migrant families at facilities with records of horrifying abuses, a decision that advocacy groups say highlights the White House's disdain for human rights as it carries out its large-scale assault on immigrants.
"Reopening family detention facilities with devastating histories of abuses, trauma, and long-term psychological damage underscores that cruelty is the point of these Trump administration policies," Amy Fischer, director of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Program at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement Thursday after CBS Newsreported the administration's moves.
According to CBS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—newly empowered by President Donald Trump—"was detaining the first group of migrant parents and children" on Thursday "in a detention facility in Texas designed to hold families with minors."
"The group includes three children," the outlet added, citing an internal government report.
Separately, NBC Newsreported Thursday that "U.S. immigration agents are planning a new operation to arrest migrant families with children as part of a nationwide crackdown."
"During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump and border czar Tom Homan said that plans for mass deportations would initially focus on migrants who had committed crimes," NBC observed. "The new plans for national operations show that many of the families and children to be targeted do not have criminal histories."
As part of the revival of family detention—which was used by the Obama administration and the first Trump administration, and largely ended by the Biden administration—immigration officials are "refitting" two Texas facilities, including the notorious detention center in Dilley, Texas.
CoreCivic, a private prison company, has been newly contracted by ICE to reopen the facility for family detention.
"I've worked at CoreCivic for 32 years, and this is truly one of the most exciting periods in my career," Damon Hininger, CoreCivic's CEO, told investors last month.
George Zoley, executive chairman of the GEO Group, said last week that "we've never seen anything like this before," referring to the speed with which the Trump administration is moving to procure contracts for migrant detention.
The New York Timesreported Friday that "a GEO Group subsidiary gave more than $2 million to Republican PACs that accept unlimited donations, with the bulk going to groups that supported House Republicans and Mr. Trump."
"It is enraging to see the Trump administration reinstate family detention, a policy of jailing immigrant parents with their children—including babies."
The Detention Watch Network noted that while the Dilley center was "in operation for family detention, there were reports of foul water and negligent medical treatment, with hospitals confirming that children are consistently released with health issues they dubbed 'Dilley-ish.'"
"In 2018, a 19-month-old girl, Mariee, tragically died after leaving the facility, and in 2019, a guard was accused of physically assaulting a 5-year-old," the organization said.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) wrote earlier this week that he visited the center in December 2018 and "it was horrifying."
"The cruelty and abuse of Trump's family detention policy is a lasting stain on our nation," Merkley wrote on social media. "I'm calling on the admin to reverse this decision—in no world should this facility reopen."
Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director of the Detention Watch Network, said Thursday that "it is enraging to see the Trump administration reinstate family detention, a policy of jailing immigrant parents with their children—including babies."
"Detention is harmful and traumatic for everyone, but especially children," said Ghandehari. "Families should be able to navigate their immigration cases in community with support services provided and facilitated by local community-based groups—never Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an enforcement agency that is plagued by egregiously poor conditions and a culture of violence."
"Taking away a child's freedom and deliberately putting them in these conditions is unconscionable, as is denying a parent their most fundamental role of providing their child with a loving and nurturing environment," Ghandehari added. "Family detention, like all immigration detention, is inhumane, unjust, and unnecessary. Everyone, certainly children and their parents, deserves to freely and safely move for opportunity and stability."
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One of the campaign promises President-elect Donald Trump made ahead of his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris last month was to carry out the "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history."
According to a Sunday, December 22 Wall Street Journal report, the private prison industry is preparing to benefit greatly from the move — if Trump is able to accomplish it.
"Private prisons and other companies that provide detention services are getting ready to cash in on" the initiative, which "includes scouring for as many detention beds as possible in their networks of facilities, and scouting sites for new buildings to house migrants," the WSJ reports.
READ MORE:**Top Trump donors who funded anti-migrant 'invasion' ad allegedly hiring undocumented migrants**
Per the report, George Zoley, who serves as executive chairman of the private prison company, GEO group, told investors soon after the election, "This is, to us, an unprecedented opportunity."
The company, the WSJ notes, "which currently houses about 40% of ICE detainees, is looking at a potential doubling of all its services, Zoley said on the call."
GEO Chief Executive Officer Wayne Calabrese told the newspaper, "We have assured ICE of our capability to rapidly scale up to monitor and oversee several hundreds of thousands, or even several millions, of individuals."
WSJ reports:
*CoreCivic, the other major player in ICE detention centers, had a similar message for investors after the election. The company believes it could quickly bring its detention capacity to 25,000 beds by bringing unused ones online, including at a facility previously used to hold families in Dilley, Texas, CEO Damon Hininger said in an interview. The Biden administration chose to close the site earlier this year, but CoreCivic kept it in 'warm status,' Hininger said.
READ MORE:['Acknowledging reality': Fed chair says Trump agenda creating 'uncertainty around inflation'
Hininger, according to WSJ, said "in addition to identifying already-existing beds it could open, CoreCivic is also exploring adding new buildings or temporary facilities on land it already owns."
WSJ also notes, "To bolster its ties to the incoming administration, GEO Group recently hired a Trump-connected lobbying firm called Continental Strategy LLC, according to federal lobbying disclosures. The Florida firm is run by Carlos Trujillo, who advised Trump on Latino voters and immigration issues during the campaign. It also employs Katie Wiles, daughter of Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles."
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922 won lawsuit CA immigr jails
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/ice-rejected-19-testing-for-all-detainees-at-facility-because-it-would-be-too-much-trouble/
820 an
ICE rejected COVID-19 testing for all detainees at facility because it would be too much trouble
There’s really no bottom when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and private prison profiteers join forces—just consider the latest example. Internal emails obtained through an ongoing lawsuit show the mass detention agency…
there’s really no bottom when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and private prison profiteers join forces—just consider the latest example. Internal emails obtained through an ongoing lawsuit show the mass detention agency and }:private prison operator GEO Group rejected a plan to test all detained people at one California facility for COVID-19 “because they would be unable to adequately isolate those who tested positive,” a coalition of groups said in a statement.
So rather than ensure the well-being of people in their custody, they threw up their hands because it would be challenging, or, gasp, they might actually have to acknowledge that people are safer not in detention. “These emails show a staggering disregard for human life on the part of ICE and GEO,” Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area senior staff attorney Bree Bernwanger said. “ICE chose to risk the outbreak that is now gripping Mesa Verde.” Along with the emails’ public release, a federal judge also rebuked the agency.
On Thursday, “a federal judge granted extraordinary relief—weekly rapid testing, no new intakes, and a dorm for COVID-positive detainees—for all immigrants detained at Mesa Verde Detention Facility in the wake of a COVID-19 outbreak that hospitalized two detainees and infected at least 7 others,” San Francisco Public Defenders, American Civil Liberties Unionof Northern California, American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Lakin & Wille LLP, and Cooley LLP also said.
The judge’s fury was evident:Judge Vince Chhabria wrote in his order that “[t]he documentary evidence shows that the defendants have avoided widespread testing of staff and detainees at the facility, not for lack of tests, but for fear that positive test results would require them to implement safety measures that they apparently felt were not worth the trouble,” groups said in the statement.
"Another e-mail revealed that ICE refused to test contract staff due to fear that positive tests could force them to change the manner in which they detain immigrants,” the groups continued.“GEO’s Mesa Verde Warden Nathan Allen wrote that ICE’s Assistant Field Office Director ‘mentioned he would rather not have staff testing as they may also impact ERO functions, i.e., an asymptomatic person testing positive would require possible dorm cohorts and detainee testing protocols.’”
In other words, ICE said not even this danged pandemic is going to disrupt our detention and deportation agenda, even if it gets the detainees, or us sick, which it has.
“What these last few weeks have revealed without a shadow of a doubt is that a government agency, and those with whom they contract, are deliberately indifferent with respect to the health and safety of the human beings they incarcerate,” Lakin & Wille LLP attorney Judah Lakin said. “It’s infuriating, heart wrenching and, quite frankly, frightening.”
The deaths this week of two peoplewhile in ICE custody—including a man who reportedly had tested positive for COVID-19 after being detained at a hard-hit Virginia facility—marked the agency’s deadliest period in nearly 15 years. BuzzFeed News reported that the deaths of the two immigrants on the same day were the sixteenth and seventeenth in-custody deaths this fiscal year, “making it the highest total since 2006, when 19 immigrants died, according to ICE records"
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1019 am prior conf
PIC geo crony capitalism [CA fines? forced labor, Am King fdn charity? 5x ways to give $ to djt?! ,
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https://www.citizen.org/article/detained-for-profit-spending-surges-under-u-s-immigration-crackdown/
many lnx
https://www.citizen.org/article/detained-for-profit-spending-surges-under-u-s-immigration-crackdown/
SEPTEMBER 18, 2019
Detained for Profit: Spending Surges Under U.S. Immigration Crackdown
Corporations Make Billions from Immigration and Corrections Contracts Under Trump and Obama; More Than $2.3B in Federal Contracts in 2018
By ALAN ZIBEL
DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT 1.2 MB
Revenue Soars For Immigration and Corrections Contractors
Additional Findings
A Growing Industry Profits from Immigrant Detention
Playing the Influence Game
Profiles of Top Contractors: GEO Group Inc.
Profiles of Top Contractors: CoreCivic Inc.
Other Contractors
Backlash and Pressure
Federal immigration and corrections policies in the Trump and Obama administrations have resulted in a windfall for private government contractors.
Ten large contracting firms working for five federal agencies implementing federal immigration, corrections and detention policies received $2.32 billion in federal contract revenue last year, up 17 percent from nearly $2 billion at the start of President Donald Trump’s term and more than double the $942 million those same companies received in 2013, a Public Citizen analysis has found.
These contracting firms run detention facilities and prisons, transport detained migrants by plane, provide security guards and build technological systems for U.S immigration and corrections agencies, among other activities.
Public Citizen analyzed the 10 largest recipients of federal contracts from five agencies and offices involved in corrections and immigrant detention in 2018 and compared those figures to the amount of federal contract revenue received by these same companies over the prior decade. The five agencies analyzed are: the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Department of Health and Human Services[1], the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The analysis was not limited to contracts for immigration and correction functions. It found that the largest contractors for these agencies typically were involved in immigration and corrections, including operating prisons and migrant detention facilities as well as providing services to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The analysis also shows that this spending began rising during President Barack Obama’s second term, coinciding with a surge in migrants from Central America. Under Trump, spending has ramped up even more as federal government has pressed ahead with sweeping efforts to constrain the flow of immigration to the United States. These actions have outraged many Americans while benefiting private contracting firms especially the two largest private prison companies.
The treatment of migrants, including the deaths of at least two dozen immigrants in federal immigration detention during the Trump administration, has sparked outrage around the country, highlighting the grim reality of a private detention industry that has expanded under Democrats and Republicans alike. Numerous reports and investigations of private prisons and detention centers over many years have documented evidence and allegations of violence, substandard medical care, deaths and suicides, sexual abuse and exploitative labor practices.
Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement actions were exemplified by the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy for illegal entry, announced by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in May 2018, of prosecuting all adults detained for illegal border crossings. While announcing the policy, Sessions said there would be an increase in prosecutors and immigration judges to handle the expected increase in cases but acknowledged that “children inevitably for a period of time might be in different conditions.” To comply with a longstanding requirement that children cannot be held in family immigration detention for more than 20 days, children with imprisoned parents have been placed in custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, whose Office of Refugee Resettlement operates as their legal guardian.
After the separation of thousands of children from their parents and the resulting public outcry, Trump backtracked months later, reversing the prior policy and allowing families to be detained together. Still, an inspector general’s report released in September 2019 found that the Trump policies resulted in longer stays in custody and a “rapid increase in the number of younger children” in custody, many of whom were separated from their parents. The report also found that many workers were unprepared to deal with children who had experienced extreme trauma in their country of origin and as a result of being separated from their parents. “Children who did not understand why they were separated from their parents suffered elevated levels of mental distress,” the report found.
Most recently, the Trump administration proposed new rules allowing the federal government to detain migrant families indefinitely while judges consider applications for asylum, a move that would involve withdrawing from a 1997 consent decree that has set standards for how detained migrant children should be treated. Immigration advocates condemned the move, with Holly Cooper, co-director of the immigration law clinic at University of California, Davis, telling reporters: “We’re going to have a world that looks a lot like the internment of families and children, where we have basically regularized prison as a default for families seeking political asylum in this country.”
Additional Findings:
During the Trump administration, major prison contractors GEO Group and CoreCivic Inc. have each received more than $1 billion from the five agencies analyzed by Public Citizen. GEO Group has received about $1.7 billion, from the start of 2017 through June 30 of this year. CoreCivic has received $1.2 billion during that same time period.
Five companies have seen contract revenue increases of 25 percent or more from the last two years of the Obama administration to the first two years of the Trump administration. Contract revenue more than tripled (329%) at Deloitte Consulting, was up by 43% at GEO Group Inc. and increased 40% at MVM Inc. Others showing large increases over that same time period were Comprehensive Health Services Inc. (39%) and Unisys Corp. (25%).
The surge in immigration detention contracting appears to be driving up overall contracting at some federal agencies. In total, the five agencies and offices studied by Public Citizen awarded more than $10.2 billion in contracts last year, up $1.1 billion, or 12 percent, from $9.1 billion the prior year. During President Barack Obama’s administration, contracting at these same agencies rose to about $9 billion in 2016 from a low of $6.3 billion.
Federal Contract Revenue for 10 Largest Contractors of Immigration/Detention Agencies Under Trump, 2017-2019 (First Six Months)
Contractor 2017 2018 2019 (1/1 through 6/30) Trump Total
GEO GROUP INC./B.I. INCORPORATED $567,015,497 $625,672,916 $506,541,762 $1,699,230,175
CORECIVIC, INC. $521,963,583 $377,049,767 $307,318,607 $1,206,331,957
UNISYS CORP $311,081,862 $311,652,598 $(3,324,833) $619,409,627
COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH SERVICES INC. $69,684,953 $205,252,758 $212,146,117 $487,083,828
DELOITTE CONSULTING LLP $113,633,741 $217,289,949 $69,560,855 $400,484,544
PAE AVIATION AND TECHNICAL SERVICES LLC $124,176,745 $110,956,067 $71,073,058 $306,205,870
METROPOLITAN SECURITY SERVICES, INC. $97,807,499 $114,499,081 $78,406,534 $290,713,114
MANAGEMENT & TRAINING CORPORATION $121,791,669 $78,249,377 $90,656,212 $290,697,258
MVM INC. $64,425,445 $144,583,737 $80,467,900 $289,477,082
NAPHCARE INCORPORATED $91,302,569 $104,916,307 $76,780,021 $272,998,897
SOURCE: PUBLIC CITIZEN ANALYSIS OF USASPENDING.GOV DATA (CALENDAR YEARS)
Change in Federal Contract Revenue for Large Contractors of Federal Immigration/Detention Agencies in Trump Admin (2017-18) Vs. Obama (2015-2016)
Contractor Name 2015-2016 (Obama) 2017-2018 (Trump) % Change
DELOITTE CONSULTING LLP $77,093,189 $330,923,689 329%
GEO GROUP INC/ B.I. INCORPORATED $833,213,901 $1,192,688,413 43%
MVM INC. $149,791,879 $209,009,182 40%
COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH SERVICES, INC. $198,043,891 $274,937,711 39%
UNISYS CORP $497,746,816 $622,734,460 25%
NAPHCARE INCORPORATED $182,422,802 $196,218,876 8%
CORECIVIC, INC. $851,605,188 $899,013,351 6%
PAE AVIATION AND TECHNICAL SERVICES $263,024,433 $235,132,812 -11%
METROPOLITAN SECURITY SERVICES, INC. $274,190,105 $212,306,580 -23%
INTER-CON SECURITY SYSTEMS INC $290,903,377 $182,882,103 -37%
SOURCE: PUBLIC CITIZEN ANALYSIS OF USASPENDING.GOV DATA (CALENDAR YEARS)
A Growing Industry Profits from Immigrant Detention
Starting about 35 years ago, the U.S. government began to delegate to private corporations the power to operate federal prisons and immigrant detention facilities.In early 1980s, under the Reagan Administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the predecessor of today’s ICE, was among the first federal agencies to contract with for-profit corporations to run detention facilities. Advocates of private contractors claimed that they could save taxpayer money while relieving prison overcrowding. “Privatization is a practical and innovative solution to the problems of overcrowding and high costs facing the U.S. prison system,” enthused a 1988 Heritage Foundation report. Decades later, private prison companies have failed to achieve significant cost savings for governments, despite efforts to slash prison budgets by hiring poorly paid non-union workers. A 2009 comprehensive analysis of 12 studies examining this issue found that “cost savings from privatizing prisons are not guaranteed and appear minimal.”
The private prison industry has kept growing through both Democratic and Republican administrations and thrived as border crossings have surged over the past 15 years. In 2006, the New York Times wrote, “As the Bush administration gets tougher on illegal immigration and increases its spending on enforcement, some of the biggest beneficiaries may be the companies that have been building and running private prisons around the country.” This forecast proved accurate. The average daily population of detained immigrants held by ICE and INS has grown from about 20,000 in 2000 to nearly 40,000 by the end of President Barack Obama’s term, when a crush of new migrants prompted Obama officials to find more holding space, That population surged to more than 50,000 by spring 2019 as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown accelerated.
The Obama administration’s family detention policies, enacted as Central American families fled violence and poverty in their countries, foreshadowed the Trump administration’s harsh crackdown. A 2014 Obama decision allowed family immigrant detention centers, typically run by private firms, backtracking on a prior decision to scale back this practice. “Frankly, we want to send a message that our border is not open to illegal migration, and if you come here, you should not expect to simply be released,” Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, said at a CoreCivic detention center in Texas in December 2014.
The Obama administration prioritized the removal of noncitizens with criminal records as well as those making unauthorized border crossings. It received considerable criticism, with immigrant advocates suing the government over detention of immigrant mothers and children. “Locking up families and depriving them of their liberty in order to scare others from seeking refuge in the U.S. is inhumane and illegal,” Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement at the time. The American Academy of Pediatrics wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Johnson that “continued detainment of any children and mothers in the existing facilities puts them at greater risk for physical and mental health problems and unnecessarily exposes children and mothers to additional psychological trauma.” In summer 2015, a federal judge ruled that the Obama administration’s detention of children violated the terms of a 1997 settlement. In 2016, The New York Times editorial board took the Obama administration to task over the issue, writing that “these privately run, unlicensed lockups are no place for children. Or mothers. Their existence belies President Obama’s oft-professed concern for the humane treatment of people fleeing crime and violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.”
Privately owned detention facilities have held a growing share of ICE’s detained population. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s advisory council reported in 2016 that facilities owned by for-profit contractors held 65% of ICE’s detainees as of September 2016, compared with about 49 percent in 2009. Under a Congressional mandate, ICE is required to have 34,000 beds available per night for immigrant detainees, a quota that critics call unnecessary and costly. By contrast, outside the immigration system, the number of federal inmates in private prisons has declined after hitting a peak of more than 41,000 in 2013.
Toward the end of the Obama administration, the tide seemed to be shifting against private detention. In a 2016 Mother Jones expose, reporter Shane Bauer spent four months under cover as a private prison guard, detailing low wages, thin staffing, inadequate security, violence and poor medical care at a private prison in Louisiana. Weeks later, an inspector general’s report concluded that private prisons are less safe and less effective than government-run prison facilities, citing frequent problems with contraband, assaults, uses of force other discipline issues.Sally Yates, deputy attorney general at the time,announced that the federal Bureau of Prisons would scale back and then eliminate the use of private facilities, and said there would be less need for such facilities amid a declining federal prison population.
“Time has shown that they compare poorly to our own Bureau facilities,” Yates wrote. Private prisons, she wrote, “simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and … do not maintain the same level of safety and security.” After the DOJ’s policy change, then-Homeland Security Secretary Johnson directed an advisory body to “review our current policy and practices concerning the use of private immigration detention and evaluate whether this practice should be eliminated.” Shares in private prison firms plunged on that news.
However, Trump’s election was a major turning point for the private prison industry. Shares soared after Trump’s election, with shares of the two largest prison-industry companies, Core Civic and GEO Group, skyrocketing as investors expected a change in government policy toward the industry. On February 21, 2017, Wall Street was proven correct, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Obama DOJ’s private prisons policy, stating that it “changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the Bureau’s ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.”
With Trump ramping up detention and deportation of immigrants, private prison firms have seen their coffers overflowing with federal contract revenue. But Wall Street has been considerably less enthusiastic about the companies of late. After riding high through much of Trump’s first year, shares in CoreCivic and GEO Group have trended downward amid mounting controversy about the Trump administration’s immigration policies as well as the decision by several major banks to stop doing business with the industry.
Playing the Influence Game
The for-profit prison industry has a history of political campaign spending, having spent more nearly $8.9 million since 2000 on campaign contributions, with about 60% going to Republicans,according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Since 2009, the industry has spent more than $25 million lobbying lawmakers and federal agencies, with $3.8 million in 2018 lobbying spending. During the 2018 campaign cycle, political action committees and individuals tied to the sector gave more than $1 million to Republican lawmakers at the federal level, making up 88% of industry contributions, with only 12% going to Democrats, according to the center’s data.
The industry has also been influential at the state level. From 2009-2016, private prison companies contributed more than $7 million at the state level, with the vast majority coming from GEO Group ($4.3 million) and CoreCivic ($2.4 million.), according to a report by the National Institute on Money and Politics.
Profiles of Top Contractors: GEO Group Inc.
GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS: In 2018, GEO Group received nearly $626 million from the five agencies in Public Citizen’s analysis, the most of any company. That was up from $567 million a year earlier and more than triple 2013’s level of about $200 million. The company’s federal contracting revenue in the first two years of the Trump administration was up 43% from the last two years of the Obama administration, according to Public Citizen’s analysis.
BACKGROUND: GEO Group is one of the two biggest players in private corrections, with more than 89,000 corrections and detention beds in 127 U.S. facilities, as well as 7,600 beds in six international facilities as of mid-2019. The company traces its origins to the security firm Wackenhut Corporation, founded by former FBI agent George Wackenhut, who founded a private detective agency in the Miami area, then expanded into the security business. The company launched a private corrections division, Wackenhut Corrections Corp, in 1984, which became a publicly traded corporation in 1994. After Wackenhut’s security business was sold to a Danish security firm in 2003, Wackenhut repurchased the Danish firm’s stake in the corrections business and changed its name to GEO Group Inc. Led by its founder and current CEO George Zoley, GEO Group has continued to grow. The company in 2011 paid $415 million to purchase B.I. Incorporated, which sells GPS tracking bracelets, radio frequency monitoring devices to the corrections industry, a business that has sparked protests outside B.I.’s offices in Boulder, Colo.
GEO Group, which recently opened a new $57 million headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., faces growing scrutiny, including from Congress, over the treatment of detained migrants. A report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found major problems at an ICE detention facilities, including GEO Group properties, including poor food safety, deteriorating bathrooms and violations of standards for the treatment of detainees.
The Jewish activist group Never Again Action has been protesting ICE detentions, including staging protests at GEO Group offices.
CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS: GEO Group’s political action committee and employees have contributed nearly $4.4 million to federal candidates since 2004, including $1.27 million in the 2018 campaign cycle, $1.32 million in the 2016 campaign cycle and about $515,000 in the 2020 campaign cycle thus far. During the 2016 presidential campaign, a GEO Group lobbyist, Richard Sullivan, was a “bundler” for the Hillary Clinton campaign, collecting contributions from family and friends.
Top congressional recipients of GEO Group employee and PAC money include: Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla), Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Over his career, Cuellar, whose district on the Texas-Mexico border has several GEO Group facilities, received nearly $124,000 from GEO Group’s PAC and company employees, making GEO the top campaign contributor of Cuellar’s entire Congressional career. Cuellar faces a 2020 primary challenge from immigration lawyer Jessica Cisneros who has strongly criticized the lawmaker’s ties to GEO Group company. The GEO Group PAC has given $9,700 to Cuellar’s 2020 campaign. A company executive told Bloomberg News that “contributions to candidates at the federal level are made through GEO’s Political Action Committee, which is exclusively funded through voluntary, non-partisan employee contributions, and these contributions should not be construed as an endorsement of all policies or positions adopted by any individual candidate.”
GEO Group CEO Zoley, and his wife Donna have made more than $540,000 in political contributions since 2010, including $10,000 to Cuellar, according to a Public Citizen analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission. That tally includes a June 2019 $100,000 donation to Trump Victory – the joint fundraising committee between the Trump reelection campaign, the Republican National Committee and several state Republican parties.
Top 10 Recipients of Federal Political Giving by George and Donna Zoley, 2010-Present
Recipient Total
TRUMP VICTORY $100,000
TAKE BACK THE HOUSE 2020 $100,000
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE $89,400
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE $58,900
MCCONNELL VICTORY COMMITTEE $50,000
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE $39,400
CAPITO FOR WEST VIRGINIA $11,000
TEXANS FOR SENATOR JOHN CORNYN INC. $10,000
TEXANS FOR HENRY CUELLAR CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN $10,000
KEVIN MCCARTHY FOR CONGRESS $5,600
Grand Total $540,854
SOURCE: PUBLIC CITIZEN ANALYSIS OF CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION RECORDS FROM FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION
Federal elections records also show that two GEO Group subsidiaries, GEO Corrections Holdings Inc. and Geo Acquisition II, have made nearly $1.4 million in political contributions since 2015, including $300,000 each to major Republican Congressional super PACs. Records also show $225,000 in donations to the super PAC Rebuilding America Now, backed by Trump friend Tom Barrack, which spent nearly $23 million to help elect Trump.
This contribution sparked a formal complaint by the Campaign Legal Center, which argued that the donation violated the prohibition on contributions by government contractors. In response, the company denied any legal violation. “All of our political contributions to federal super PACs comply with all applicable federal laws and regulations and have been made by GEO Corrections Holdings, a legal entity which does not hold any federal contracts,” GEO Group told the International Business Times. Additionally Maplight first reported that GEO Acquisition II made a $125,000 contribution to a superPAC supporting former Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s successful Senate campaign, raising similar questions about contributions by government contractors. In Florida business records, Zoley is listed as president or CEO of GEO Corrections Holdings and GEO Acquisition II. Public Citizen, along with many other civic organizations and public officials, have long criticized the Federal Election Commission for failing to enforce the federal ban on such contributions by allowing companies to create artificial firewalls between divisions that solicit and receive federal contracts and those that make campaign contributions. Public Citizen has also called on the FEC to create rules that would close this loophole.
Top 20 Recipients of GEO Group Political Action Committee Contributions, 2010-Present
Recipient Total
TRUMP VICTORY $190,000
MCCARTHY VICTORY FUND (Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.) $55,000
TEXANS FOR GREG ABBOTT $52,500
REPUBLICAN LEGISLATIVE CAMPAIGN CMTE $50,000
ROMNEY VICTORY INC. $50,000
WIN IN 2016 $50,000
REBUILDING AMERICA NOW $50,000
NRSC TARGETED STATE VICTORY COMMITTEE $50,000
FLORIDA FIRST PROJECT (Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.) $50,000
NRCC HEADQUARTERS/BUILDING FUND $47,200
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE $45,000
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE $45,000
BOEHNER FOR SPEAKER $45,000
TEXANS FOR HENRY CUELLAR CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN $44,390
RUBIO VICTORY COMMITTEE $40,000
NRSC TARGETED STATE VICTORY FUND $35,000
NRC HEADQUARTERS/BUILDING FUND $35,000
NRSC HEADQUARTERS/BUILDING FUND $35,000
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN $30,000
NRSC LEGAL FUND $25,000
GRAND TOTAL $3,272,714
SOURCE: PUBLIC CITIZEN ANALYSIS OF FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION DATA
Recipients of GEO Subsidiary Political Giving
Recipient GEO ACQUISITION II GEO CORRECTIONS HOLDINGS INC Total
CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP FUND (GOP House super PAC) $100,000 $200,000 $300,000
SENATE LEADERSHIP FUND (GOP Senate super PAC) $300,000 $300,000
NEW REPUBLICAN PAC (Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.) $225,000 $225,000
REBUILDING AMERICA NOW $225,000 $225,000
CONSERVATIVE SOLUTIONS PAC (Sen. Marco Rubio R-Fla.) $110,000 $110,000
AMERICA’S FUTURE $100,000 $100,000
FLORIDA FIRST PROJECT $100,000 $100,000
FLORIDA CONSERVATIVE FUND $10,000 $10,000
VALOR FUND $10,000 $10,000
Grand Total $435,000 $945,000 $1,380,000
SOURCE: PUBLIC CITIZEN ANALYSIS OF FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION DATA
LOBBYING AND INFLUENCE
GEO Group has spent more than $9.5 million on federal lobbying since 2004. In 2018, GEO Group spent more than $1.5 million on lobbying, with lobbyists including former Rep. Connie Mack (R.-Fla.). and Brian Ballard, a longtime Florida lobbyist and Trump supporter whose firm has become the go-to lobbying shop for those seeking to influence the Trump administration. The company’s lobbyists have also included a former aide to Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, as well as Lanier Avant, a former Democratic staff director for the House Homeland Security Committee, who served a prison term after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges. “We believe strongly in providing people with the tools and skills necessary to have a second chance at life after serving a prison sentence; therefore Lanier’s past never factored into our consideration,” a GEO Group spokesman told The Daily Beast
In 2017, GEO Group held its annual conference at Trump’s golf resort, the Trump National Doral near Miami. GEO Group and competitor CoreCivic each contributed $250,000 toward Trump’s inauguration. GEO Group is also a major player at the state level, spending $9.7 million on lobbying in states since 2010, according to the National Institute on Money in Politics.
Despite its financial interests in an expanding prison system, GEO Group says that it does not lobby for longer prison sentences. In its federal lobbying disclosures, GEO Group lobbyists say that the company promotes “the use ofpublic-private partnerships in the delivery of correctional services including evidence-based rehabilitation programs, both in-custody and post-release, aimed at reducing recidivism and helping the men and women in our care successfully reintegrate into their communities” and that the company “does not take a position on or advocate for or against criminal justice policy related to criminalizing certain behaviors or determining the length of criminal sentences.”
REVOLVING DOOR:
GEO Group has numerous connections to top government officials. A former head of ICE, Julie Myers Wood, serves on the company’s board as does Scott Kerman, formerly California’s top state corrections official. GEO Group hired the former second-ranking ICE official, Daniel Ragsdale as executive vice president for contract compliance. GEO also hired a top Federal Bureau of Prisons official, Frank Lara, as director of operations. While at the BOP, Lara sent a memo directing officials to transfer inmates to private contract facilities as a way to “alleviate the overcrowding at Bureau of Prisons’ institutions and maximize the effectiveness of private contracts,” according to Government Executive. In 2012, GEO Group hired David Venturella, formerly director for enforcement and removal at ICE as senior vice president for client relations. The company’s general counsel, Joe Negron, is the former president of Florida’s state senate.
ACTIVITY UNDER TRUMP: In April 2017, GEO Group won a $110 million contract to build a 1,000-bed immigrant detention facility north of Houston. The company also announced a $25 million annual contract to reactivate an ICE processing center in Basile, Louisiana, a $37 million annual contract to reactivate a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in Michigan as well as a $10 million per year contract to expand the capacity of an ICE processing center near Houston.
Profiles of Top Contractors: CoreCivic Inc.
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4. The Conference Organizers, Who Said It Was a “Half-Million Dollar Event”…
The conference was organized by American Priority, a for-profit company that describes itself as supporting free speech and free association. The company charged $250 for general admission and said about 1,000 people registered. The conference also sold entry to VIP events, such as photo ops with Trump Jr.
The head of American Priority, Alex Phillips, declined to say exactly what the company took in. But he did give an estimate of how much the conference cost. “This is pretty much a half a million-dollar event,” Phillips said. “Our next one probably will be a million-dollar event.”
Phillips also said he would have the conference at the president’s hotel again: “The only thing that would keep us from coming here again is if our attendance projections got higher than they can handle.”
5. The Nonprofits
The conference hosted golfing and poker events for two charities: The WalkAway Campaign and the American King Foundation. The WalkAway Campaign aims to convert Democrats to the Republican Party. The American King Foundation is a pro-Trump nonprofit that supports job training for former inmates. Phillips said that the conference will announce the amount raised for charity “in the next several weeks.”
And then a new (profitable) meme was born…
During Trump Jr.’s speech, he repeatedly raised the idea that Hunter Biden — former Vice President Joe Biden’s son — is missing. “Where’s Hunter? Where’s Hunter?” people in the audience yelled. That phrase later took off outside the conference, amplified by the president himself, who tweeted it.
“Where’s Hunter?” T-shirts are now available on Trump’s reelection site. They are $25 each.
And don’t forget the Private Prison Company That Gave Money…
One of the event’s sponsors was the GEO Group, a private prison company that the government uses to house immigrant detainees. A GEO Group spokesman said the company sponsored the conference by donating $25,000 to the American King Foundation.
It’s not the first time at the Doral for the GEO Group. The company also held its annual leadership conference there in 2017.
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july 2018
Politicians sent a message to one of the country’s largest for-profit prison companies: Your money’s no good here.
Ten members of Congress last month either rejected or refunded contributions from the political action committee of GEO Group amid a backlash over the company’s role in holding immigrants detained at the Southwest border, according to the PAC’s July report with the Federal Election Commission.
Since October 2016, GEO Group and its subsidiaries have received $560 million from contracts awarded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and oversee a number of ICE detention facilities.
Eight of the 10 members were Democrats.
Two came from retiring members, who often return unused PAC contributions: Rep. John Conyers of Michigan ($1,000) and House Majority Leader Paul Ryan ($5,000). Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma was the lone non-retiring Republican with a voided contribution ($2,500) last month.
Four Republicans accepted money from the PAC in June: Senate candidate Josh Hawley of Missouri; Reps. Mike Bishop of Michigan and Martha Roby of Alabama; and Indiana state Rep. Tom Saunders.
Roby, Bishop, and Saunders each received $1,000 last month. Hawley, the frontrunner in Missouri’s Republican primary, received $5,000.
Since January 2017, the company’s PAC and employees have spent over $800,000 in political contributions. In May, the PAC donated $102,650 to federal candidates. Due to the uncashed contributions, however, the PAC’s June spending total was negative $3,000.
In April, GEO’s PAC reported two $5,000 donations to Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s Republican Senate campaign. A month later, the PAC reported the checks as “void.” The Boca Raton-based company, which gave $225,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC during the 2016 presidential election and $250,000 for Trump’s inauguration, operates six private prisons in Florida.
A spokeswoman for Scott said Friday the campaign never received the donations appearing in GEO’s FEC filing.
In the past, the company has aggressively lobbied to secure government contracts and influence the nation’s immigration policy.
In 2017, the company spent $1.7 million on lobbying, the highest amount on record for a private prison contractor. GEO Group’s lobbying slowed in the second quarter, however, similar to its decline in PAC contributions to federal candidates.
GEO Group spent about $200,000 on lobbying from April to June, according to second-quarter reports filed by the July 20 deadline. In the first quarter of 2018, the company spent $380,000 on lobbying.
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Since President Richard Nixon declared the national "War on Drugs" in the 1970s, the American prison population has skyrocketed; the same is true of the numbers of people locked up in private prisons, especially since the 1990s. Over their history, private prisons have been controversial for several reasons, including in some cases their treatment of incarcerated individuals. Supporters, however, say private prison companies have shouldered some of the burden from overpopulated federal prisons.
In the 2016 election cycle, private prisons gave a record $1.6 million to candidates, parties and outside spending groups. That was nearly triple what they'd given in 2014 and more than double their contributions in the 2012 presidential cycle. Most of the increase came in the form of donations to outside groups, and Geo Group was responsible for most of that: It gave $300,000 to super PACs backing various Republican presidential candidates, including one backing now-President Donald Trump.
Of the 2016 contributions that went to candidates or parties, 85 percent went to Republicans. That's higher than in most previous cycles, but consistent with the conservative leanings of this industry. Since 1990, private prisons have given 73 percent of their total party-and-candidate contributions to Republicans.
Including its super PAC gifts, GEO Group was the top contributor from the industry by far in the 2016 election cycle, giving more than $1.2 million.
Private prisons' outlays for lobbying were the highest in nine years -- $2.75 million -- as the industry tried to fight back against then-President Obama's efforts to make less use of their facilities. Here, CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corp. of America) led the spending with about $1.1 million devoted to lobbying.
...
Total for Correctional facilities constr & mgmt/for-profit: $3,816,000
Total Number of Clients Reported: 5
Total Number of Lobbyists Reported: 44
Total Number of Revolvers: 35 (79.5%)
| Client | Affiliate | Total |
|---|---|---|
| CoreCivic Inc | - | $1,230,000 |
| Correctional Vendors Assn | - | $300,000 |
| GEO Group | - | $1,560,000 |
| Management & Training Corp | - | $690,000 |
| TransCOR | - | $36,000 |
View our complete Lobbying profile for For-profit Prisons
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=G7000
...
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Shareholder Battle for Transparency Continues, the Gay Pride Lobby and More in Capital Eye Opener: June 7
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Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.
https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/heres-the-shocking-amount-of-money-private-companies-are-making-from-detaining-immigrants/
ACLU has a brief, but informative, video below about the GEO Group in particular, which makes $1.6 billion per year from government contracts. It is not coincidence whatsoever that private prison companies like GEO Group donate heavily to Republicans and Donald Trump. Their investment is paying off nicely for them at the expense of children dying and living in squalid conditions.
Here are some data points and graphics from OpenSecrets.org that tell the story.
| Cartoon by Khalil Bendib |
While the nation’s economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm that is paid millions by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates. In the last year and a half, GEO announced plans to add a total of at least 3,925 new beds to immigration lockups in five locations. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the U.S. Marshals Service, which hire the company, will fill the beds with inmates awaiting court and deportation proceedings.
GEO reported impressive quarterly earnings of $20 million on February 12, 2009, along with an annual income of $61 million for 2008 – up from $38 million the year before. But the company’s share value is not the only thing that’s growing. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit prison firm, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death.
Detaining immigrants has become a profitable business, and the niche industry is showing no signs of slowing down. The number of undocumented immigrants the U.S. federal government jails has grown by at least 65 percent in the last six years. In 2002, the average daily population of immigration detainees was 20,838 people, according to ICE records. By 2008, the average daily population had grown to 31,345.
Since 2003, more than a million people have been processed through federal immigration lockups, which are part of a network of at least 300 local, state and federal lockups, including seven contracted detention facilities. GEO operates four of those seven for-profit prisons.
Numerous investigations and reports have documented problems at GEO’s immigration detention facilities.
At the company’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, federal prosecutors charged a GEO prison administrator in September 2008 with “knowingly and willfully making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements to senior special agents” with ICE, according to court filings. A February 2008 audit found that over a period of more than two years ending in November 2005, GEO hired nearly 100 guards without performing the required criminal background checks. The GEO employee responsible, Sylvia Wong, pleaded guilty. In the plea agreement the federal government stated that Wong falsified documents “because of the pressure she felt” while working at the GEO lockup to get security personnel hired at the detention center “as quickly as possible.”
Two months before the fraud charges, a study by the Seattle University School of Law and the nonprofit group OneAmerica reported that conditions at the Tacoma facility violated both international and domestic laws that grant detained immigrants the right to food, due process and humane treatment.
Federal immigration officials have the authority to incarcerate undocumented immigrants, asylum-seekers, and even lawful permanent residents while they await hearings with immigration judges or appeal decisions. ICE reports the average length of stay is 30 days, but detentions can last years, according to a November 2008 ICE fact sheet.
Pramila Jayapal, executive director with OneAmerica, took part in interviewing a random sample of more than 40 immigrants detained at the Northwest Detention Center, which holds approximately 1,000 immigrants at any given time.
“It’s a very giant concrete box. It’s just like a jail,” said Jayapal. “You’re only supposed to meet in the client area, which is only a few rooms.”
One inmate from Mexico, Hector Pena-Ortiz, told interviewers that guards had interrogated and handcuffed him twice, demanding that he sign immediate deportation papers despite the fact that he had a pending appeal. Under federal law, immigrants cannot be deported from the United States if their immigration legal cases are still pending. During one of the incidents, guards admitted to having a file on the wrong inmate, Pena-Ortiz said.
In addition to violations of legal rights, inmates cited food as a major concern. The vast majority of the 40 prisoners interviewed at the facility said rations were inadequate and sometimes rotten. Inmates with financial resources depended on food bought from the lockup’s commissary. Others went hungry. A man identified in the study as “Ricardo” said he had lost 50 pounds of his original 190-pound weight since arriving at the detention center.
ICE officially denied the claims in the report, but in 2005, annual agency inspections at the Northwest Detention Center documented problems with the quality and quantity of food and found that some meals were so poor, guards had to collect and replace them.
Looking for Opportunities
The Tacoma lockup, site of the most recent GEO controversy, is located on top of a former toxic waste dump that borders coastal wetlands near the Port of Tacoma, Washington. In August 2008, the firm announced plans to expand its 1,030-bed Northwest Detention Center to 1,575 beds, “to help meet the increased demand for detention bed space by federal, state, and local government agencies around the country.”
Just four months after GEO’s announcement, ICE notified government contractors that the agency was looking for a contractor-owned and -operated detention facility. According to federal procurement data, the new facility should be capable of providing 1,575 beds – the same number GEO was set to build – to be completed no later than September 2009 – the same date GEO had set for the completion of its own construction project.
Lorie Dankers, ICE spokeswoman in Washington state, implied that the similarity in numbers and date was a coincidence. “I would never comment, nor have I in the past, on what GEO is doing and why they’re doing it. That’s a business decision that GEO made,” said Dankers. “To insinuate that there was some kind of connection, or that they has some inside information as to the request, that would be incorrect.”
Dankers added that ICE’s request for more space is still in the “pre-solicitation” phase, meaning that there is no guarantee a contract will be offered, and the agency is simply requesting information from contractors to “guage interest.”
“I don’t have any information one way or the other as to what would happen,” Dankers said. “I think often times, if I had to speculate, they see where there’s a need. I think they’re always looking for opportunities.”
Canceled Contracts
And opportunities, like prisoners, abound. GEO owns more than 62,000 prison beds in the United States, with approximately 3,000 beds used for detained immigrants. The company also claims a global market share of 25 percent of the private corrections industry. Currently, the Northwest Detention Center incarcerates immigrants mainly from Oregon, Washington and Alaska, according to Dankers.
In the last five years, criminal immigration prosecutions have surged by 388 percent according to federal court data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University in New York. The most recently available court information shows that there were 11,454 prosecutions in September 2008 alone. Adding to GEO’s profitability and prospects are immigration laws introduced in the 1990s, the expanding use of immigration detention without bond, and a greater emphasis on prosecutions after 9/11.
The company’s relationship with government officials has also proven valuable in winning corrections contracts.
In 2006, while on the state payroll as director of prisons at the Colorado Department of Corrections, Nolin Renfrow helped GEO obtain a $14 million-per-year contract to detain 1,500 inmates in a proposed state prison project in the northern part of the state. Renfrow was moonlighting for GEO –with an expected compensation of $1 million – when a 2007 state audit and news reports uncovered the public servant’s business deal.
The audit found that Renfrow’s actions could “arguably present a conflict of interest and result in a breach of ... the public trust,” because state law prohibited an “employee from assisting any person for a fee or other compensation in obtaining any contract.”
The county district attorney with jurisdiction over Renfrow declined to press criminal charges, but in the wake of the scandal, officials with the state’s corrections department rescinded the contract.
Prisons as Money Makers
Immigrant facilities are not the only GEO lockups that have sparked claims of negligence and abuse.
In 2007, the firm settled a lawsuit with the family of an inmate for $200,000. LeTisha Tapia, a 23-year-old woman incarcerated at the GE0-owned Val Verde Correction Facility in southern Texas, told her family in July 2004 that she had been raped and beaten after being locked in the same cell block with male inmates. Shortly after, she had hung herself in her cell. The nonprofit Texas Civil Rights Project sued GEO on behalf of Tapia’s family.
“The jail drove this young woman to kill herself,” charged the family’s attorney, Scott Medlock, in a February 15, 2006 press release from the Texas Civil Rights Project. “GEO cuts corners by hiring poorly trained guards, providing inmates with cut rate medical care, and running their facility in a grossly unprofessional manner.” Citing confidentially provisions in the settlement, Medlock refused further comment.
More recently, in 2008, civil liberties attorneys sued the company for failing to provide adequate medical attention to inmates outsourced from Washington, DC, to the Rivers Correctional Institute, located in North Carolina and overseen by GEO through a contract with the federal Bureau of Prisons. That same year, Idaho state authorities removed 125 inmates from a GEO prison after an investigation – spurred by the suicide of a detainee at the facility – revealed poor staff training and health care.
“Pretty immediately when people started going to Rivers we started to get letters about how bad the health care was, and just how people were really scared of dying there,” said Deborah Golden, an attorney with the DC Prisoners Project, a group that is representing inmates in the legal case against GEO. One inmate named in the report, Keith Mathis, claims he was denied medical treatment for a cavity until the tooth became infected and caused an open ulcer on his face that eventually “burst open,” requiring surgery and three days hospitalization.
“The more we looked into the situation the more we realized it was a systemic problem,” said Golden. “I suspect that it’s a pattern all over. When you try to run prisons as money makers what you do is cut back on the most expensive thing you can, which is medication and medical care.”
GEO has said it will not publicly comment on pending legal cases or abuse claims by third parties, including nonprofit groups. Company spokesman Pablo Paez says that on the subject of business plans, “we have no comment beyond what’s in our public disclosures.”
Despite a wide array grievances and tragedies, GEO has accrued contracts worth more than $588 million in federal tax dollars since 1997, according to available federal procurement data. And as long as federal officials continue to remand a growing number of inmates and immigrants over to private businesses, without imposing strict oversight, GEO will likely remain profitable.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15308