Private immigration jails planned near sanctuary cities: St. Paul, Chicago, Detroit, SLC, and Texas

[riversedge]

There is a DEEP mean streak in Trump--and Republicans who support this atrocity with tax payer money!



12/15/17 11:40 AM EST

Trump’s other wall: Private immigration jails planned near sanctuary cities

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/365091-trumps-other-wall-private-immigration-jails-planned
© Getty Images

While much attention has been paid to the debate over President Trump’s proposed border wall, it’s not the only anti-immigrant wall his administration wants to build.

In October, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took steps to identify sites for new or expanded privately run immigrant detention centers in St. Paul, Chicago, Detroit, Salt Lake City, and Texas. The process took place with little fanfare and no public announcement from the Trump administration. But this expensive and dangerous expansion of privatized detention poses a grave threat to immigrants and communities across the country.

The proposed detention sites are consistent with the administration’s efforts to round up and deport more immigrants in the U.S. interior. The White House has requested an additional $1.2 billion in the 2018 budget for immigration enforcement, in part to fund an increase in detention capacity to 51,000 people a day. The House and Senate appropriations bills would also increase detention capacity, albeit at slightly lower numbers.

But why this massive expansion of detention?

Despite the “law and order” rhetoric coming from the administration, these increases look more like a political statement that conveniently funnels profits to private companies that donated generously to President Trump’s election.

The truth is there is no “public safety” rationale for these facilities. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been struggling to manufacture an illusion of danger in order to justify cruel and arbitrary immigration policies. In the leadup to a series of ICE raids in February, DHS went so far as to send directives to ICE field offices demanding they generate lists of “egregious” cases of crimes allegedly committed by immigrants, and continued to prod ICE officers when they failed to deliver. And the administration has doggedly refused to acknowledge the ample body of evidence that demonstrates immigrants are a positive force in building safer communities.

Instead, these detention centers may be a costly way to further attack sanctuary cities. Four of the five proposed sites are near cities that have taken steps to protect residents by enacting policies that limit collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement. They are also far from the border – further indicating the Trump administration’s commitment to ramping up interior enforcement. There has already been a 40 percent increase in interior arrests in fiscal year 2017, which means ICE agents are picking up more and more people in parts of the country far from any border, and detaining and deporting them in record numbers...........................

[awesomerwb1]

1. When the approval ratings are low

you can always count on these f-ers to bring up immigration.