President Trump’s budget bill will codify much of Trump’s immigration agenda, drastically changing the landscape of immigration enforcement and detention. Significantly, the bill funds a giant immigration detention apparatus that would likely be difficult to dismantle under future presidents. This new money comes as the administration is thwarting attempts at congressional oversight of detention conditions — and alongside new levels of cruelty directed at undocumented immigrants.
The legislation makes U.S Customs and Immigration Enforcement the largest federal law enforcement agency, giving it $45 billion for building new detention centers in addition to $14 billion for deportation operations. It also includes $3.5 billion for reimbursements to state and local governments for costs related to immigration-related enforcement and detention.
The bill funds an expansion to approximately double immigrant detention capacity, from about 56,000 to potentially more than 100,000 detention beds. Private prison firms — many of which were significant financial supporters of GOP candidates for Congress as well as the president’s campaign — will reap major financial benefits from this spending, as nearly 90 percent of people in ICE custody are currently held in facilities run by for-profit firms.
In May, the CEO of private prison company CoreCivic told investors, “Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now.” This budget bill will solidify that vision for CoreCivic, GEO Group, and other firms that manage and own immigrant detention centers and transportation subsidiaries.
Indeed, in anticipation of funding from the new budget, the administration has already started to enter into lucrative contracts with GEO Group and CoreCivic. And it has done so without going through the competitive bidding process under the theory that there is a “compelling urgency” to ramp up detention capacity. The contracts include the resumption of operations at the 2,400-bed Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas, which is operated by CoreCivic; a potential reactivation of a detention center in Leavenworth, Kansas, to house up to 1,033 detainees; and the reopening of Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed detention center owned by GEO Group in Newark, New Jersey. Further, there have been contract modifications that allow ICE to use more beds at various private facilities.
President Trump has justified his immigration agenda in part by making false claims that migrants are driving violent crime in the United States. As the Brennan Center highlighted, research has found that immigrants actually commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. In fact, 72 percent of people in ICE detention have no criminal record. Further, for those in custody with a criminal record, many have minor offenses, such as traffic violations.
Such lies help to justify the administration’s hostility to immigrants, documented or not. For example, the bill charges unprecedented immigration fees to people seeking Temporary Protected Status ($550 fee) or asylum ($100). Children traveling without an adult will have to pay $250 to obtain protected relief, and the cost of an appeal of an immigration judge’s decision skyrockets from $110 to $900. These fees essentially create a two-tiered system where only those who can afford these application fees can participate in the immigration process in the U.S. or obtain due process.
But there is no possible justification, fictional or otherwise, for the hastily built detention center for 5,000 immigrants in the Florida Everglades callously dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and White House officials. Florida plans to seek reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for construction of the makeshift facility, but Uthmeier noted that security will be cheap because the remote location is surrounded by alligators, pythons, and other dangerous wildlife.
Far from Capitol Hill, Trump drew attention to his immigration enforcement agenda by visiting the makeshift facility in the Everglades this week. And there are serious questions and concerns about how detainees will have access to lawyers, medical personnel, and contact with friends and family, in addition to a lack of clarity on oversight of the detention conditions at the facility.
The plan to put hundreds of thousands more people in ICE detention facilities comes at a time when DHS is blocking oversight of those facilities. And there have been growing reports of unsanitary, harsh, and unsafe conditions. At least 10 people have died in immigration detention so far this year, a rate nearly three times the number of deaths over the past four years.
Perhaps most troubling is the administration’s outright defiance of congressional oversight. ICE has denied numerous members of Congress access to detention facilities and field offices as they attempted to check on conditions for detainees — even though federal law provides members of Congress the legal right to do so.
The law says that members of Congress and their staffs must be permitted to “enter[], for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.” The law also says that no prior notice is required. But in June, ICE issued a new policy asking for at least 72 hours notice for a visit. It also claimed that ICE field offices are not covered by the law, despite the fact that many field offices are being used to detain people for multiple days.
This comes on the heels of the department eliminating the Office of the Immigration Ombudsman and the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, both of which performed critical oversight of immigration detention.
This level of funding for immigration enforcement to house undocumented immigrants who do not pose a public safety threat is without precedent. This spending spree is particularly troubling given the undoing of the limited immigration detention oversight that existed to ensure humane conditions of confinement.
