President Joe Biden signed an executive order to end federal prisons that are for profit.
However, the order was not applicable to private immigrant detention centres.
ICE now holds more than 21,000 people - up from 14,000 when Biden was elected.
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Protesters interrupted one of Joe Biden's speeches in June and demanded he stop using for-profit immigrant detention centres. President Joe Biden responded with anger.
He said, "I agree with your," at a rally held in Georgia. "I'm working hard on it, man!"
However, the president's promise to keep it has been broken three months later.
This week, US Customs and Immigration Enforcement announced it intends to house up to 1,875 people in a central Pennsylvania jail that will be managed by The GEO Group, one the largest for-profit detention companies in the country, according local outlet The Progress News.
More than 21,000 people are currently held in ICE detention centres across the country. This is in addition to the 14,000 who were detained when the new administration came to power, but well below the 55,000 immigrants detained during the peak of 2019 under President Donald Trump.
Private prison to for-profit detention
Biden signed an executive order shortly after he took office directing the Department of Justice not to continue its contracts with private prison corporations. Politico reported at the time that Biden was considering whether to ban ICE from receiving such a ban. He never did.
Facilities that were once privately run prisons are now being used as immigrant detention centres. For example, the Pennsylvania GEO-run facility was once a federal prison that had been run by GEO. The company announced the day Biden's inauguration, noting that the federal government had decided to terminate its prison contract.
It "flies in face of the administration’s commitment to fightfor racial equality and disavows certain foundational principles of executive order," Setareh Ghandehari (advocacy director at Detention Watch Network), a group of activists, stated in a statement. "The perverse financial incentives which drive incarceration continue to thrive in ICE detention.
ICE did not respond immediately to a request for comments.
Azadeh Shahshahani is the legal and advocacy director of Project South. She helped expose involuntary medical treatment at a for profit ICE facility. Insider reported that the conversion from private prisons into private detention centers would threaten the rights of immigrant workers.
She said, "It is shameful that the Biden administration continues entrusting the well-being immigrants to private prison companies with horrendous human right records." Profit motive is the only motivation for prison corporations."
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