ICE awards billions contracts: ICE to Spend Billions on Contractors for Detention and Deportation
The Trump administration is preparing to dramatically escalate the number of private contractors it uses to help track, manage, detain, and deport people living illegally in the United States. The potential price tag for this endeavor is over $45 billion over the next several years. The White House has set a goal of removing 1 million people annually, making good on President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to conduct the largest deportation operation in history.
Justification for Mass Deportations
“If we don’t get these criminals out of our country, we are not going to have a country any longer,” Trump posted on social media April 21. This statement reflects the administration’s stance on the importance of deporting individuals living in the US illegally.
Contract Details
Among the newest moves is a $72 million no-bid deal to hire a team stacked with former federal officials to fingerprint, DNA test, and retina-scan detainees, help manage intake paperwork, and track down high-priority targets. This will free up Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to conduct more arrests. ICE officials said they don’t have the time to hire federal agents fast enough and will be able to redeploy more than 650 existing agents once the private contractors come aboard.
Still on ICE awards billions contracts
ICE’s Current Capacity
ICE has 6,000 agents, plus additional support staff. The agency’s current budget is $9.6 billion, with about 41,000 detention beds. ICE reported holding nearly 48,000 people in detention in mid-April. However, the agency plans to add up to 60,000 new detention beds in facilities across the country this year.
Congressional Funding
Congress is considering a funding bill to pay for the contracting, after approving a temporary $430 million increase in March. Trump has halted most federal hiring, but exempted public safety agencies, including ICE.
Rationale for Expansion
ICE urgently requires additional resources to immediately implement the direction provided in the executive orders, the agency wrote in announcing one of the contracts. Increased detention capacity is needed immediately to avoid the release by ICE of a significant number of aliens into the United States, a situation that poses significant public safety risks.
Private Prison Contractors
Private prison contractors, including CoreCivic, have seen their stock prices soar as a result of the potential for increased business. “This is essential for them to carry out the mass deportations they promised or threatened, depending on your perspective,” said Prof. Michael Kagan, who runs the Immigration Clinic at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas law school.
Lakin Riley Act’s Impact
The new Lakin Riley Act passed by Congress and signed by Trump could require 60,000 to 110,000 additional beds. The law requires ICE to detain immigrants illegally in the US if they’ve been accused or arrested for certain crimes. CoreCivic President and CEO Damon Hininger said the company is proposing to provide ICE with 28,000 detention beds.
Concerns about Oversight
Critics worry that the expanded use of contractors will make it even harder to monitor conditions within the ICE detention system. The Trump administration has ended multiple monitoring systems designed to provide outside oversight of ICE, along with abolishing internal ombudsman programs that helped ensure detention facilities weren’t violating detainees’ human rights.
ACLU’s Concerns
Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, expressed concerns about the massive spending on detention and deportation. It certainly represents an astronomical amount of money that ICE is preparing to spend… especially in the wake of such a dramatic push for efficiency, such dramatic cutbacks in government services like Social Security, veteran’s benefits, cancer research.
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