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Republicans Defend Forced Labor for Immigrants in Private Prisons
Sometimes we see a headline and click it in disbelief, hoping it can't be true. We wait for the article to load while shaking our head and sometimes it's not as bad as the headline appears. This is not one of those cases. This is beyond belief.
Private-prison companies that allegedly force undocumented immigrant detainees to work for little or no money have a powerful new group of advocates: Eighteen members of Congress.
The members, all Republicans, sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Department of Labor, calling for them to help private-prison company GEO Group defend itself in lawsuits by former detainees.
These lawsuits are being brought on behalf of jailed immigrants being used as slaves.
The lawsuits argue that these companies, including GEO Group and CoreCivic, break a law against human trafficking by having detainees work for a $1 per day or less.
Private prison company CoreCivic Inc. was hit with a proposed class action on Thursday [February 22nd} on behalf of immigrant detainees, alleging that CoreCivic is operating forced labor camps that violate the human rights of the detainees....
Not surprisingly, the GEO Group defends their use of imprisoned people since it makes them rich by collecting for the labor and not paying the laborers. In the February lawsuit against CoreCivic, they were cited as profiting more than $1.5 billion per year off this labor. Yes, this is actually happening.
GEO Group....argues that immigrants should not be able to sue prison companies because they aren’t employees there, and that paying them $1 per day for their work is lawful.... forced labor saves the government money and improves detainees’ morale.
Natually, the GEO Group and CoreCivic donate to several of the Republicans who signed the letter supporting and defending prison prison slave labor.
The letter was signed by Lamar Smith, Jody Hice, Matt Gaetz, Steve King, Mike Rogers, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, Dana Rohrabacher, Paul Cook, Scott Taylor, Earl “Buddy” Carter, John Ratcliffe, Duncan Hunter, Bob Gibbs, Barry Loudermilk, Brian Babin, and John Rutherford.
GEO Group and CoreCivic, the nation’s two largest private prison companies, have contributed to six of those members’ campaigns: Gaetz, Rutherford, Cook, Taylor, and Ratcliffe. In total, they have given those six members just over $20,000 since 2015.
Sources:
https://www.law360.com/articles/1015434
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-08/are-private-prisons-using-forced-labor