ICE Contract Lapses, Humanitarian Concern Arises (Suddenly)
Bloomberg breathlessly details a senator's call for the evacuation of a private ICE detention site whose contract 'expired last month.' It's riveting stuff, this sudden urgency for 'transferring people out' of facilities with questionable conditions. One wonders where this fiery humanitarian zeal was last year, or the year before that, as private prison corporations like Geo Group and CoreCivic
(who pulled in $2.2 billion and $1.9 billion respectively in 2022) raked in profits from the very system the senator now deems problematic. Perhaps an expired contract is what it takes for some politicians to notice the conditions inside these for-profit cages. This isn't about humanity; it's about legality, or lack thereof. The concern isn't about the injustice of detention, but about the
paperwork expiring. It's almost as if the 'inhumane' label *only* applies when the legal immunity runs out. How many congressional sessions have passed without similar calls to end the federal reliance on private prisons entirely, not just when a lease is up? The sudden outrage conveniently overlooks the bipartisan support that built this for-profit detention pipeline.