How Private Prisons are Profiting Off of the Anti-Immigrant Movement

“This video and the new campaign that accompanies it highlights what we alreadydiscovered last year during the SB1070 debates: private corporations that run detention centers (funded by tax payer dollars) are lobbying for bills that mean more people are detained in their centers. This of course, means more profit for them, to the tune of about 5 billion dollars per year.

The way immigration has been handled in this country has always been about profit. We need undocumented immigrants in this country so that companies can hire workers who will work for way less than minimum wage, not unionize, work in unsafe conditions, all without the ability to fight back (they can simply threaten to call immigration on them). All of the cheap food and cheap products that we buy and eat profits on the backs of immigrant labor. Those companies (and individuals) don’t want the immigrant workforce to gain status–it’s not in their financial interest. The history of immigration to the US has always been fueled by an undercurrent of profit.

It’s disgusting and inhumane. I oppose the privatization of prisons in the first place, because it encourages practices that are best for the bottom line, not the people who are incarcerated or detained.

The good news is that following the money allows us to highlight the hypocrisy of elected officials who are influenced by lobbyist and campaign donations from these corporations. It allows us to expose what these bills are really about: xenophobia, racism and profit-mongering.”  (via Feministing)