Activists accuse Balcones Heights of profiling

Is this a case of combining Racism, Xenophobia, Nativism to Profits? Just fill these jails in the Private Prison Complex anyway you can?

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Web Posted: 02/10/2009 12:00 CST

By Jeorge Zarazua - Express-News

More than 40 protesters rallied outside the Balcones Heights Police Department on Monday, accusing officers of racial profiling in efforts to detain unauthorized immigrants.

“Since early December there have been cases of racial profiling,” said Carlos de Leon, spokesman for the activist group Brown Berets of San Antonio. “The Police Department has been acting as immigration agents. As a result, they have been randomly stopping anyone who looks Hispanic and asking them for their papers.”

But city officials denied the allegations, saying officers understand they cannot enforce federal immigration policies.

“We're not acting as an ICE agent, no way,” said Police Chief Bill Stannard, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We're just acting as a police officer.”

Stannard said officers do not stop anyone unless they have probable cause, such as a traffic violation. He said officers then question the suspect, and if the person doesn't have any identification and can't be identified via computer, additional steps are taken.

“If we think they are a foreign-born national, we will call immigration,” he said. “The officer will call immigration. The agent will come out immediately or they talk to them on the telephone, and many of the times immigration is the one who will identify these people,” Stannard said.

It's that practice that drew the ire of the Brown Berets and several other Hispanic activist groups Monday as they marched into the Police Department's front parking lot, carrying banners and posters and shouting for justice.

“Everybody knows we're here today to stop racial profiling here at Balcones Heights,” Tony Mandujano of the American G.I. Forum said through a bullhorn.

Mandujano, De Leon and others argued that local police officers have no business enforcing federal immigration laws.

Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said he didn't understand why Balcones Heights would be calling immigration officials.

“I think that's pretty reprehensible,” Harrington said. “They really don't have the right to demand people give their identification unless they have some reason to believe that the identification that person is giving them is wrong. People are not required in this country to carry some sort of proof with them of their identity.”

Spokesmen for both the Bexar County Sheriff's Department and the San Antonio Police Department said they don't make it a practice to call immigration authorities regarding suspects they detain. But Ino Badillo, spokesman for the Sheriff's Department, said immigration officials do make daily stops at the county jail in search of possible unauthorized immigrants.

Stannard, a 33-year peace officer, said he feels his department is acting properly when officers detain people who can't be identified.

“I took an oath as a police officer,” he said. “I feel like we're not racially profiling and that we're doing the right thing. It's not about race. It's not about color. It's whether or not they are here legally or not.”

CCA No. 1 in Immigration Detention Contracts

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INVESTIGATIVE REPORT 2008

The nation's largest private prison company has partnered with the federal government to detain close to 1 million undocumented people in the past 5 years until they are deported. In the process, Corrections Corporation of America has made record profits. Critics suggest the CCA cuts corners on its detention contracts in order to increase its revenue at expense of humane conditions. Thanks to political connections and lobby spending, it dominates the industry of immigrant detention. CCA now has close to 10,000 new beds under development in anticipation of continued demand.

RELATED: OPERATION ENDGAME

DETENTION

Private detention centers – most of which are operated by CCA – are key to the federal government’s goal of “ensuring the departure from the United States of all removable aliens,” which are estimated to total about 12 million.

Houston, TX - In a business park aptly named Export Plaza, Corrections Corporation of America runs a complex of concrete buildings surrounded by razor wire. It’s here where immigrants, like Sergia Santibanez, are locked up until they agree to leave the country.

“When you first get there, they tell you you’re nobody,” said Santibanez, who spent 16 months there. She still breaks into tears whenever she recalls the experience.

In 2005, the mother of three U.S.-born children was giving several people a ride outside of Austin, where she had been living as legal resident since the 1980s. She got into an accident, and when the police came, she was arrested and eventually convicted for transporting undocumented immigrants, an aggravated felony that revoked her legal status. She served four months in a federal prison before ending up at CCA’s Houston Processing Center while the court decided whether she should be deported. Read More...

Renee Feltz on Democracy Now! talking about Business of Detention.

PROFITS

The math is simple. More demand for immigrant detention beds, plus more government funding, equals more business for Corrections Corporation of America. Every year since 2003, the company has made record profits.

CCA generated its highest revenue ever in 2006 when ICE doubled its detention beds from 19,500 to 27,500.

The company won contracts to provide about half of these new beds.

“We’ve never seen the wind at our back like it is today,” CCA’s President and Chief Executive Officer, John D. Ferguson said after discussing $1.3 billion in revenue during a May 2006 conference call with investors.

The infusion of detention center contracts marked a high point for the company after it had struggled for several years to expand. In 1999, independent auditors expressed doubt that CCA could even stay in business after the company suffered a net loss of $72 million mainly due to an abundance of empty beds.

That year, CCA spun off its real estate operations, Prison Realty Trust, from its correctional management services in a failed move that required a bailout from well-connected private equity firm, The Blackstone Group. The firm brought in Lehman Brothers and Bank of America to lend $350 million in exchange for four seats on the company’s board and 25 percent of company stock.

Blackstone’s Senior Managing Director, Thomas Saylak, convinced the Wall Street partners that the infusion of capital would allow CCA to “maximize growth prospects. Over time, we believe this new direction will be recognized and rewarded by investors.” Read More...

CONTRACTS

In San Diego, the ACLU lawsuit prompted ICE to move some of the detainees to other detention centers. It also prompted CCA to propose constructing a new facility nearby that would hold four times more detainees. Thus, rather than being penalized for overcrowding, the company may even end up winning a new contract.

San Diego, CA - In 2006, the CCA-run San Diego Correctional Facility was so crowded that three immigrant detainees lived in cells designed for two. So where did the third person sleep?

“They would put what they called a boat, a plastic unit, on the floor in the only floor space available in the room – beneath the toilet,” explained Tom Jawetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Prison Project.

The detainees soon became restless from living in cells where they could barely move around. When new detainees were brought in, they nearly broke out into a riot and had to be subdued with teargas. By the time Jawetz filed suit to stop the overcrowding, CCA was housing overflow population in the facility’s day rooms.

Over the years, ACLU has sued CCA for overcrowding and substandard medical treatment. ACLU lawyers say that CCA squeezes profit from immigrant detention contracts by scrimping on the already minimal services it is required to provide. Unlike prison contracts, immigrant detention contracts only provide for housing, food and medical services, not rehabilitation and education services.

CCA makes the most money from facilities that are full or beyond capacity. In San Diego, the ACLU lawsuit prompted Immigration and Customs Enforcement to move some of the detainees to other detention centers. It also prompted CCA to propose constructing a new facility nearby that would hold four times more detainees.

Thus, rather than being penalized for overcrowding, the company may even end up winning a new contract. “We have an existing relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal customers and we want to be able to maintain that relationship,” CCA spokesman, Steve Owen, told the San Diego Union Tribune.

CCA also got away with providing only substandard medical care. At the San Diego facility, conditions were so bad that the Department of Immigration Health Services was forced to take over.

“The DHS concluded CCA’s provision of medical care was deficient and that CCA was attempting to increase its profits by decreasing the medical services to detainees,” said Jawetz. Read More...

CONNECTIONS

CCA plays the game of politics like a pro. After all forty percent of its revenue comes from federal contracts. The company backs key politicians who support an immigration crackdown, and has intensified its lobbying in order to influence those still on the fence.

Washington, D.C. - CCA plays the game of politics like a pro. After all forty percent of its revenue comes from federal contracts.

The company backs key politicians who support an immigration crackdown, and has intensified its lobbying in order to influence those still on the fence. For good measure, it hires former prison and immigration officials to coordinate its federal relations.

When Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on comprehensive immigration reform, CCA backed lawmakers who found common ground on the issue of funding detention. 2007 was the first year CCA’s Political Action Committee, otherwise staunchly Republican, donated $15,000 to the Democratic Congressional and Senatorial Committees, according the Federal Election Commission. However, the company gave twice this amount to the GOP.

The rest of CCA’s political giving went directly to lawmakers who determine detention funding through their positions on the appropriations committee in the House and Senate. In 2008, the committees approved a $2.3 billion budget for ICE detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, including funds for an additional 4,870 new beds.

More than half the senators backed by CCA’s PAC are on the appropriations committee, and four of them are on the subcommittee on Homeland Security. The company was most generous with the minority ranking member, donating $5,000 each to Thad Cochran (R-MS), and the Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell.

In 2006, it gave $1,000 to committee member, Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), who nonetheless remains critical of mass detention based.

“In Orange County, we’ve had electronic monitoring devices and more supervision when we’ve let people out of detention centers, its been a most cost effective way to deal with a certain portion of the population, especially women with children, the elderly, and the ill,” said Sanchez. “I think there are ways we could use appropriate alternatives to keep the costs down and still monitor where people are.”

One CCA-backed appropriations committee member deserves special mention. Former Tennessee governor, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) received $31,200 from 2003-2008 from the Nashville-based company and its employees, spouses and their subsidiaries, according to Federal Election Commission documents. Alexander’s history of supporting CCA includes endorsing its failed bid in 1985 to take over the Tennessee prison system. Read More...