By William E. Gibson
June 12, 2015
Every day, federal officials are obligated to pay to hold 500 immigrants behind bars at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach to meet a contract with the for-profit prison, according to a report released on Thursday by independent watchdog groups.
The lockup quota at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami is 450, the report says.
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch said the detention-bed requirements in Broward, Miami and 13 other facilities across the country create a costly incentive for immigration enforcers to round up and imprison foreign residents accused of living in the country illegally. He plans to file legislation next week to bar immigration officials from forming such contracts.
Deutch, a Democrat from West Boca Raton, said immigration officials "face enormous political pressure to ensure that no bed goes unfilled."
The local quotas are designed to help meet a nationwide detention-bed requirement of 34,000 a day, which was established by Congress in 2009 as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration. Critics call it a cash cow for the prison industry.
The Detention Watch Network and the Center for Constitutional Rights, using disclosures obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, reported that bed mandates have been established by contract with individual facilities.
"The impact of the detention bed mandate is now being felt at the local level," Deutch said.
"It helps to ensure that the detention-bed mandate becomes harder and harder to overcome. Because anyone who signs a contract and is guaranteed a minimum number every single night is going to fight to keep those numbers in place. And it only perpetuates this terrible, wasteful, inhumane policy."
In response to the report, the federal Immigration and Customs and Enforcement agency issued a statement saying it is "charged with the responsible and effective enforcement of U.S. immigration law based on our priorities, which include a strong emphasis on public safety."
"ICE's capacity of 34,000 daily detention beds is mandated by Congress," the agency said. "In order to meet that mandate and use our limited resources in the most efficient way, we have developed agreements with certain facilities to make available certain numbers of beds to ICE at all times. The availability of those beds in no way impacts ICE's enforcement priorities or actions. ICE continues to makes every effort while carrying out our mission to use efficiently the space for which we are expending resources."
The lockup quota set by Congress continues despite President Barack Obama's policy of detaining and deporting immigrants who have committed serious crimes, not established residents who are living or working in the country illegally.
ICE statistics indicate that most of those being held are convicted criminals. Field office directors typically decide whether others should be detained or monitored in other ways, such as ankle bracelets or telephone check-ins.
But the watchdog groups that released the report say that contracts with Broward and other prisons are driving detention decisions by giving officials a reason to meet the bed quotas, especially if they come with price discounts.
South Florida immigrant leaders share that concern.
"Mandating an arbitrary detention bed quota and wasting valuable tax money to pay for them, whether they are used or not, is morally and economically wrong," said Isabel Vinent, deputy director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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