Immigration: Fueling the American Economy
“ We thus think about imprisonment as a fate reserved for others, a fate reserved for the “evildoers,” …because of the persistent power of racism, “criminals” and “evildoers” are, in the collective imagination, fantasized as people of color.” Both prisons and immigration detention centers latch onto this similar idea of racism. Racism isn’t acknowledged by the people in power, but it is clear. Throughout history, people of color have always been in positions where they will never have the upper hand. This paper focuses on the topic of immigration detention centers, and how they are solely objects for the wealthy to leech off of. They are left in no place to defend themselves, or get out of this loophole of slavery. Angela Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete, she asks us the large question. Are prisons still effective, or were they ever effective? In the 1980s, prisons were being produced at a large rate, as many politicians were arguing the “tough on crime” stance, yet the mass incarceration during that period had little or no effect on the crime rate. It was noticed, as our justice system was being turned into a prison industrial complex was rapidly expanding, corporate involvement was also expanding rapidly alongside it. In this essay, I hope to express how much I believe that these detention centers are nothing but a way of racism to be monoplized upon, and for the continous ways for slavery to be used by those who are in power.
What does the Prison Industrial Complex mean? The prison industrial complex is a term that is used to describe the overlapping interests of government and prison industry as a means of creating opportunities to boost clear economic benefits at the expense of the incarcerated populace. The most concerning thing is that there is an intertwining of corporate involvement within the justice system. From construction, provision of goods and services, to inmate labor, it is all system for prisons to become profitable. So, are prisons being used for the actual purpose of rehabilitation and punishment, or are they simply a way for private companies to make money?
We are indeed living in an era of corporate migration, and it is still extremely prominent within the 21st century. It is a fact that after 9/11 occurred, there was a significant increase in funding for ICE to help catch and prevent illegal immigration within the United States. Now from the common hate language about the ideas of criminals and immigrants, there was this large fear. Money on deportation funds was going through the roof. “ Immigration enforcement increased dramatically after September 11. Immigrant removals — including deportations and so-called voluntary departures — went from roughly 200,000 people in 2001 to nearly double that in 2011. One reason for the increase in deportations is the growth in the undocumented population, according to Chung-Wha Hong, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. But another is the increased spending on border security.” Considering the billions of dollars allotted to immigration enforcement in the past decade, it’s not surprising that private businesses want to get onboard. Enter the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group, the two companies that manage most of the country’s private immigration detention centers. Within these immigration detention centers, many of these immigrants are being capitalized upon, meaning that private investors within these industries can generate millions of dollars off of the people that are being held within these jails. So do these detention centers have a purpose or are they simply a way to control these people of color, and for the wealthy to turn over a profit from them.
This is the issue, there is such a large loophole to this whole system. The minorities are being captured and put into jails/detention centers. First, it was the black population, and now the Hispanics, it is going to be endless. The cycle is only going to stop when the prisons are no longer able to profit off of the prisoners. Unfortunately, the number of immigrants is only climbing. “Approximately 7% of the US population, or 22.8 million people, are non-citizens. In 2017, nearly 260,000 people sought asylum, or protection from persecution, within the United States. These immigrant populations experience unique risks to health, including pre-migratory trauma, unsafe and stressful migration experiences, and post-migration discrimination. Human rights abuses can occur across this spectrum of the immigrant experience.” We don’t want to call these detention centers “jails”, but the similarities are uncanny. Detained individuals are held in secured facilities, wear prison uniforms, and are subjected to strict control of time and movement. Indeed, many local jails contract bed space to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and for-profit, stand-alone immigration detention facilities use corporate prison models. I am sure that we have all heard the jail horror stories, but there have been so many reports that indicate that physical abuse and sexual assault in detention centers are frequently ignored. For example, the Department of Homeland Security received 33,126 complaints of sexual and physical abuse from January 2010 to July 2016 but investigated only 570. Rape and sexual assault are often underreported in immigration detention due to fears of retaliation, social isolation, language barriers, and knowledge that allegations are not seriously investigated. Detention center medical systems have limited health care services, are frequently understaffed, and are focused on managing acute care needs rather than chronic medical problems, resulting in medical neglect, delayed diagnoses and care, and severe negative consequences, especially among trauma-exposed individuals.
“The immigration prison is a reminder that human bondage based on racial and economic markers of undesirability can’t be relegated to some distant past,” Hernández writes. “If we’re willing to lock people up, we’ll find a reason. Most of the time the targets will be people of color. We can call this coincidence, but we would be lying to ourselves.”- César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández. With the increasing overlap between the criminal justice and immigration systems, importing yet another element, this time custodial labor, from the criminal into the immigration context easily could go unnoticed. This is the problem, why is it still going unnoticed, these people are human.
While writing this paper, I hope to highlight how numb we have become as a society, we have seen horrific images of abuse that children and families endure, as well as the lack of human rights these immigrants are given, we have seen it all, but still, we are failing to draw awareness and do something to stop it. This is where we have done wrong, we need to focus on what is happening to these minorities, and we need to come up with solutions that don’t take away all their rights. There is an incentive for those who can financially gain from these problems rather than support meaningful change. Studies of detained immigrants, primarily from abroad, have found negative physical and emotional symptoms among detained children, and posttraumatic symptoms do not always disappear at the time of release. Young detainees may experience developmental delays and poor psychological adjustment, potentially affecting functioning in school. Qualitative reports about detained unaccompanied immigrant children in the United States found high rates of posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and other behavioral problems. Additionally, an expert consensus has concluded that even brief detention can cause psychological trauma and induce long-term mental health risks for children.
Continuing into the 21st century, the prison industrial complex does not limit itself to prisons and jails, but it includes juvenile detention centers as well as immigration detention centers, that are all being taken advantage of, which to this day is still wrong, as exploitation of people of color is still happening today. The whole prison industrial complex is a network for business for the wealthy, and it is a way for people of color to be controlled and taken advantage of again, similar to what we have seen, Angela Davis’s Prison Obsolete,. Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves, why these people are leaving their family, their friends, and their entire lives to come someplace safe, or what we call “The Land of the Free?” Though many believe that illegal immigration is wrong, there is a better solution than throwing their entire lives back into a system that will strip them of all their rights, we need to take a step back, and we need to ask ourselves, what are other humane ways to prevent immigration in a way that their rights are still given to them, but our point is still made.
