March 2021
immigrantjustice.org
This policy brief was authored by Jesse Franzblau, senior policy
analyst, National Immigrant Justice Center. For questions email
jfranzblau@heartlandalliance.org.
Policy Brief
Cut the Contracts:
It’s Time to End ICE’s Corrupt
Detention Management System
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues to grow its massive immigration
detention system using a web of corrupt contracts that breed impunity for abuses. Government
watchdog agencies and lawmakers have long documented improper contracting practices and
farcical inspections practices in the immigration detention system that is plagued with
systemic racism and abuse. Yet as recently as January 2021, the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) reported on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s intransigence in the
face of these reports and persistent failure to follow even its own protocols as the system
expands.
ICE’s detention system incentivizes incarceration for maximum profits. Congress gave ICE
nearly $3 billion for fiscal year 2021 to maintain more than 200 immigrant detention centers. In
this system, private prison companies grossly enrich themselves while local governments pad
shrinking budgets. The people trapped in this system, however, suffer severe human rights
abuses.
ICE’s lack of oversight of this system has deadly consequences. Between January 2017 and
April 2020, 39 adults died in ICE custody or immediately after being released. The COVID-19
pandemic has further illuminated the deep suffering that results from ICE impunity. The number
of people who died in ICE custody in 2020 was more than double the prior year. As of the end of
February 2021, more than 300 of the 13,890 people still detained by ICE had COVID-19. Two
people had died in detention since President Biden took office.
NIJC joins immigrant rights advocates in the Detention
Watch Network’s Communities Not Cages campaign to call
on the Biden administration to shut down detention centers
immediately and end detention contracts. This policy brief:
1) provides a roadmap of the immigration detention
infrastructure and its contracting and inspections
processes; 2) summarizes the robust record of corruption
and abuse in these processes, as documented by
government watchdog agencies, advocates including NIJC,
and members of Congress; and 3) describes how corrupt
contracting shows up in the “first 10” detention centers
which the Communities Not Cages campaign has identified
should be shut down.
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Policy Brief | immigrantjustice.org
A sprawling web of corrupt contracts
ICE’s detention system involves more than 200 facilities which involve contracts with private
prison companies, county and city jails, and state prisons. The system fuels perverse financial
incentives to keep more immigrants incarcerated, using “pass-through” arrangements,
guaranteed minimums, and long-term contract extensions to avoid accountability.
ICE manages detention facilities through a patchwork of contracts, including:
- Non-Dedicated Intergovernmental Service Agreements (IGSA): Facilities owned by
state or local governments, or private companies, which contract to hold people for ICE
as well as other agencies, either together or separately. - Dedicated Intergovernmental Service Agreements (DIGSA): Facilities owned by
state or local governments or private companies operated exclusively under an
agreement with ICE to hold people in immigration proceedings. - Family Residential Centers (FRC): Facilities owned and operated by state or local
governments under agreements with ICE which hold children and their families. - U.S. Marshals Service
Intergovernmental
Agreements (USMS IGA):
Contracted by the U.S.
Marshals Service and used
by ICE through a rider on
the contract to detain
people on behalf of ICE. - Service Processing
Centers (SPC): Facilities
owned by ICE and generally
operated by contracted
detention staff. ICE
contracts with private
companies for services
such as guards, food, and
facility maintenance. - Contract Detention
Facilities (CDF): Facilities
owned and operated by
private companies and
contracted directly by ICE to
exclusively hold people in
ICE custody.
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Policy Brief | immigrantjustice.org
“Pass-through” contracts
The most commonly used contract arrangement, the IGSA, operates in a manner that
compounds the opacity and corruption inherent to ICE detention. These contracts usually entail
a “pass-through” arrangement, allowing local officials to act as middlemen for ICE and private
companies. With these agreements, ICE contracts with local governments, side-stepping
procurement laws that govern contracts with private companies. The counties or municipalities
hosting the detention centers then contract directly with the same private companies that
operate the facilities, receiving kick-back funds from the private operators. The most recent
GAO findings assert that ICE uses IGSAs intentionally to bypass procurement laws and open-
government requirements.
In 2018, the DHS Inspector General documented that ICE’s policies and procedures for
negotiating, executing, and modifying IGSAs were insufficient. The investigation found the IGSA
for one of the largest and most expensive detention centers — the South Texas Family
Residential Center in Dilley, Texas — to be improper under federal procurement law. In this
arrangement, the city of Eloy, Arizona, collected over $400,000 a year through an IGSA for a
detention center 900 miles away. The company CoreCivic operated the facility and received the
most financial benefit from the agreement, which cost taxpayers $261 million from 2014 to 2016.
The January 2021 GAO report stated that ICE contended there is no legal requirement to award
an IGSA competitively.
Another stunning example of this
questionable arrangement is the Adelanto
Detention Center in California, which first
operated under an IGSA that paid GEO
Group $112 per day per person, while the city
of Adelanto made about $1 million annually
off the deal. California auditors found that
GEO Group used the IGSA arrangement to
inappropriately negotiate with ICE to amend
Adelanto’s contract to detain more people.
After California passed laws to prevent the
expansion of immigration detention in the
state (SB 29 and AB 103), GEO Group
convinced the governments of Adelanto and
other cities to terminate their IGSAs,
promising extra-contractual payments in
return. In March 2019, Adelanto ended its
IGSA, and ICE awarded a $62 million sole-
source short-term contract directly with GEO
Group, bypassing the competitive
procurement process. This created the
circumstances for ICE to secure long-term
private contracts that are at issue in ongoing
litigation.
A shower stall at Adelanto Detention Center in May 2018
(Credit: DHS Inspector General)
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Policy Brief | immigrantjustice.org
ICE also frequently places riders on contracts between the U.S. Marshals and local prisons,
jails, or private detention facilities, a contract mechanism that allows detention expansion with
even fewer barriers than direct contracts or IGSAs. Acquiring detention space in a local jail or
private facility with a USMS agreement in place is the fastest and easiest option for ICE to
expand because it does not have to negotiate any new terms, rates, or conditions — ICE is
simply added to the Marshals’ existing agreement. At the end of fiscal year 2019, the January
2021 GAO report states, 17 percent of people in ICE detention were held under such
agreements despite repeatedly documented neglect and systemic abuse in these facilities.
Guaranteed minimums & wasteful spending
A number of ICE detention contracts include guaranteed minimums, or “bed quotas,” which
require ICE to pay contractors for a minimum number of detention beds regardless of whether
those beds are used. From fiscal years 2017 to 2019, ICE increased its number of contracts and
agreements with guaranteed minimums by about 38%. As of May 2020, the GAO found, ICE
was paying around $20.5 million a month in empty bed space.
The money wasted on unused beds is part of ICE’s bloated spending, which has climbed from
$3.3 billion annually in 2003 to $7.9 billion for fiscal year 2021. Congress appropriated around
$2.83 billion in fiscal year 2021 to fund detention. In addition to paying for detention beds, ICE
shells out millions in taxpayer dollars on hundreds of contracts with companies for a range of
services, including food, guards from military contractors and mercenary firms, transport for
children to detention shelters and hotels, and surveillance technology. (See ICE’s FOIA library
for hundreds of these contracts)
Long-term contract extensions
ICE regularly signs detention center contracts extending a decade a more with minimal
transparency or oversight. For example, in December 2019, ICE entered long-term contracts
worth billions in California, just days before the law AB 32 was set to go into effect to restrict the
use of private immigration detention facilities in the state. The 15-year contracts included
Adelanto and Mesa Verde, run by GEO Group; the Otay Mesa Detention Center, run by
CoreCivic; and the Imperial Regional Detention Center, run by Management and Training
Corporation (MTC). California’s congressional representatives charged in November 2019 that
ICE’s solicitation process appeared to have been tipped toward the three for-profit companies
operating immigration detention centers in the state, a potential violation of federal procurement
law.
More recently, in August 2020, ICE renewed contracts with GEO Group and CoreCivic to run
two Texas facilities for an additional 10 years. CoreCivic told investors that it signed a 10-year
contract renewal with ICE at the Hutto Residential Center in Texas and expected a similar
award for the Houston Processing Center. GEO Group similarly announced that it had signed a
new 10-year contract for the South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, Texas. More than 45
organizations and members of Congress strongly opposed the contract extensions. Still, many
of the contracts’ details remain shrouded in secrecy.
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Policy Brief | immigrantjustice.org
ICE’s sham oversight scheme
ICE’s oversight system is aptly described as a “theater of compliance,” constructed to cover up
abuses and avoid accountability. ICE has several tools that are supposed to identify and correct
deficiencies in detention centers, including ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations’
contracted annual inspections (carried out by private companies); ICE’s Office of Detention
Oversight inspections; and Quality Assurance Surveillance Plans (QASPs), which allow for
reports on abuses and financial penalties. In practice, however, inspections involve performative
reviews of detention facilities designed to ensure unabated federal funds for local counties and
private contractors.
ICE’s annual inspection program, for example, uses preannounced visits, allowing operators to
hide evidence of abuse ahead of time. Congress reported in September 2020 that the
contractors paid to conduct these inspections generally fail to identify deficiencies, and DHS
rarely does anything when they do. ICE officials have called such inspections “useless” because
they are “very, very, very difficult to fail.” When the DHS Inspector General conducted
unannounced visits, it found utter disregard for human life, including overly restrictive
segregation, inadequate medical care, and hanging nooses in cells. Congress also reported,
during the pandemic, that DHS fails to provide necessary medical care to people in detention
with serious and chronic medical conditions.
Since 2009, federal appropriations law has barred ICE from continuing to contract with any
facility that fails two consecutive annual inspections. This requirement has done little more than
incentivize ICE to ensure that its inspections are meaningless. The latest ICE data shows only
two facilities received “deficient” ratings in the last two years, and in both cases the facility
passed its previous or following inspection. Reporting obligations also require ICE to notify
Congress if it enters new contracts or extends contracts without adhering to national compliance
standards. Still, ICE sees this
process as a rubber stamp,
providing Congress with cursory
notifications that merely note that
compliance with higher standards
would be more costly.
The DHS inspector general also
revealed that ICE allows contractors
to get away with violating contracted
standards by granting waivers. ICE data showed nearly 180 waivers operational in 2019, many
of which implicated issues central to immigrants’ health and safety in detention. For example, at
least eight facilities received waivers so that they would not be required to provide full medical
records for people transferred to other sites or released from detention.
Finally, the DHS Inspector General has found that when detention contracts require QASPs to
facilitate reporting on wrongdoing, ICE rarely imposes financial penalties on contractors even
when serious discrepancies are reported. The GAO’s January 2021 report further confirmed that
ICE’s oversight structure has limited meaningful reporting on discrepancies, often because ICE
officials did not want to damage their relationships with the detention facility operators. Such
clientelism perpetuates a revolving door effect, where ICE officials leave their posts to work at
the same companies they once regulated.
— DHS Office of Inspector General report, June 26, 2018
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Policy Brief | immigrantjustice.org
Constant expansion efforts
The inherently inhumane immigration detention apparatus has grown even amid changing
political tides over the decades. The average daily population in immigration detention hovered
around 10,000 in the early 1990s. ICE’s budget more than doubled as part of the post-9/11
national securitization of immigration policies, reaching $5.74 billion in fiscal year 2010.
Congress passed a 2009 “bed quota” authorizing DHS to pay for 34,000 detention beds across
the country on any given day. The Obama administration fueled the sprawling detention system,
including expanding family detention. The Trump administration further expanded the detention
apparatus to hold more than 50,000 people by 2019.
Toward the end of the Trump administration, detention numbers dropped due to anti-asylum
policies restricting entry at the border. The numbers dropped further as federal courts forced
ICE to release people as the deadly COVID-19 pandemic ripped through ICE facilities. Now, the
number of people in detention is at its lowest in 20 years, underscoring the arbitrary and
unnecessary nature of detention. The relatively lower numbers should signal a permanent trend
down, yet ICE continues to quietly try to expand its infrastructure even more.
In the last months of the Trump administration, ICE sought to expand existing facilities’ capacity
and build new sites. In October 2020, ICE issued requests for information (RFIs) for new
detention facilities in Newark, New York, Miami, and Denver. After ICE issued a similar RFI in
October 2017, community groups
engaged in persistent organizing and
protests to stop ICE from expanding in
their towns. NIJC obtained information
showing that the private prison company
Immigration Centers of America (ICA)
responded in pursuit of new contracts.
Subsequently, ICA hired lobbyists to
convince local officials in Wisconsin,
Illinois, Maryland, and in Michigan to
approve new detention sites. So far,
these expansion efforts have failed; but
ICE and ICA persist — including a
proposal for a new detention center in
the city of Ionia, Michigan. Local
community groups continue to organize
against the proposal.
Some states have passed laws to stop private detention expansion. Illinois, for example, passed
the Private Detention Facility Moratorium Act in 2019 to block for-profit detention centers in the
state. The law, and community organizing, finally forced ICE to cancel its plans to build a new
facility in Dwight, Illinois. Still, as discussed above, ICE and its private accomplices continue to
try to expand even in cases where states, such as California, assert autonomy to prevent
federal immigration detention in their backyards.
A dormitory inside ICA-Farmville. (Credit: ICE)
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Policy Brief | immigrantjustice.org
The First 10 Contracts ICE Must Cut
The Communities Not Cages campaign supports local organizing to build a nationally
coordinated strategy to stop ICE expansion, shut down detention centers, and ultimately end
immigration detention in its entirety. The campaign has identified the following 10 detention
centers as priorities for the Biden administration to shut down, calling them emblematic of how
the immigration detention system as a whole is inherently abusive, unjust, and fatally flawed
beyond repair. Ending these 10 contracts should be the beginning of a process to entirely phase
out the use of immigration detention.
The 10 facilities highlighted in the campaign are: - South Texas Family Residential Center (CoreCivic) in Dilley, Texas: The Dilley
family detention center opened in 2014, after ICE improperly modified an existing IGSA
with the City of Eloy, Arizona, to establish the family detention center more than 900
miles away. Dilley has the capacity to hold 2,400 people, and in March 2019, held at
least 15 babies. Complaints of abuse include accusations of a guard physically
assaulting a five-year-old boy in the facility in 2019. Legal service providers have sued
ICE for blocking legal counsel from the facility. In February 2021 the Biden
administration announced that families will no longer be detained at Dilley for long
periods, and it is one of two family detention centers being used as quick-release
“reception centers.” See the 2018 modified contract and 2020 inspection report. - Karnes County Residential Center (GeoGroup) in Karnes, Texas: Advocates have
been calling for Karnes to be closed since it was opened in 2014. In October 2020, ICE
began using Karnes to hold migrant families whom the Trump administration sought to
expel from the U.S. without due process using Title 42 authority, under the false and
xenophobic pretext of public health concerns. The Biden administration has continued to
carry out such expulsions, in the face of public outcry, including hundreds of Haitian
asylum seekers and migrants returned to danger in Mexico and Haiti. In February 2021
the Biden administration announced that families will no longer be detained at Karnes for
long periods, and it is one of two family detention centers being used as quick-release
“reception centers.” See the 2015 modified contract and 2013 inspection report. - Berks Family Residential Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania: Opened in 2001,
community groups for decades have called for the Berks facility to be shut down,
documenting abuses that include sexual assault and medical neglect. A guard pleaded
guilty to sexual assault against a Honduran woman in 2014. Local advocates have
documented medical neglect, psychological trauma, persistent verbal abuse, and
harassment, as well as disregard of Pennsylvania and federal law. As of March 4, 2021,
ICE has reportedly released everyone from Berks but has not announced if the facility
will close. See the 2013 modified contract and 2011 inspections report. - Hutto Detention Center (CoreCivic) in Taylor, Texas: The Hutto facility has a history
of abuse since 2010, including multiple sexual assaults by guards and forced labor
allegations which are still in litigation. Community groups have documented cases of
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Policy Brief | immigrantjustice.org
intimidation and retaliation. After more than a decade of community protest against
abuses at the facility, Williamson County commissioners voted in June 2018 to end their
IGSA contract with ICE and CoreCivic. However, ICE renewed the contract directly with
CoreCivic in August 2020, for an additional 10 years, without engaging in a competitive
bidding process as required in federal procurement law. See the 2010 modified contract
and 2011 inspection report. - Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden, Alabama: For years, groups have
been calling for Etowah to be closed, documenting complainants that include retaliatory
beatings, mismanaged healthcare, a climate of fear and intimidation, racial slurs, and
discrimination. Etowah came under criticism for its dangerous mismanagement of
COVID-19, with people detained reporting being punished for asking for a COVID-19
test. Asylum seekers told journalists in February 2021 they were being threatened
with exposure to COVID-19 if they did not sign their deportation orders. See the 2015
modified Marshals contract and 2017 inspection report.
A brief history of ICE’s family detention system
Family detention facilities are known for inhumane incarceration with irreversible trauma
inflicted on children. ICE opened the first family detention center, Berks Family
Residential Center, in 2001. In spite of widespread opposition and warnings, the Obama
administration opened two additional facilities in 2014, South Texas Family Residential
Center and Karnes County Residential Center. Internal records obtained through FOIA
show that the Obama administration expanded family detention using reprogramming and
transfer authority — an opaque budgetary practice DHS has used over the years to divert
hundreds of millions from other departments to expand immigration detention.
An advisory committee convened by DHS itself said in 2016 that detention was neither
appropriate nor necessary for families. Still, the Obama administration sent more families
to detention, with long-term ramifications that resonate today. ICE pays $231 per family in
detention per day and projected spending over $423 million in fiscal year 2021 to detain
5,000 people per day in family detention. Families have limited access to counsel at these
facilities, making it nearly impossible to pursue protection claims under U.S. immigration
law. Family separation is also inherent to family detention. In July 2020, attorneys warned
that families in ICE detention were subject to “family separation 2.0,” where parents are
forced to choose between being detained with their children or allowing ICE to take their
children away to be with a sponsor.
The number of detained family members more than doubled from 228 before Biden took
office to 476 in February 2021. However, as of early March 2021, the administration had
not officially confirmed any permanent change in ICE’s family detention policy. While the
decision to stop long-term detention of families is vital, NIJC calls on the administration to
move toward ending these facilities’ corrupt contracts altogether and eliminating the
opportunity for any form of family detention to continue.
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Policy Brief | immigrantjustice.org - Irwin County Detention Center (LaSalle Corrections) in Ocilla, Georgia: Irwin
County Detention Center, operated by LaSalle Corrections, is one of the worst ICE
detention centers when it comes to access to legal counsel. In September 2020, a
whistleblower and human rights groups reported that women detained at Irwin had been
subjected to forced hysterectomies without their consent. An ACLU report eight years
earlier exposed abuses and medica neglect that foreshadowed the scandal. An ICE
inspections report from 2017 also reported allegations of sexual abuse, hunger strikes,
and suicide watch lists. See the 2007 contract and 2017 inspections report. - Otero County Processing Center (MTC) in Chaparral, New Mexico: The Otero
County Processing Center is managed by private prison contractor Management and
Training Corporation (MTC). Advocates have long documented systemic abuses in
Otero, including over 200 complaints made between 2015 and 2018 about issues
including unhealthy living conditions, abuse and exploitation, social isolation and mental
anguish, and barriers to justice and
legal access. A January 2021
report by local advocates
documents hundreds of similar
complaints, including lack of
medical care, barriers to the legal
system, and racial discrimination.
During the pandemic, MTC sought
to increase the numbers of people
detained even after the State of
New Mexico declared a public
health emergency, to keep the
company’s continued operation of
the facility “financially viable.” See
the 2017 modified contract and
2016 inspection report. - ICA-Farmville (Immigration Centers of America) in Farmville, Virginia: ICA began
detaining people for ICE in Farmville in 2010. Under its IGSA, the Town of Farmville
collects around $240,000 a year to act as the intermediary between ICE and ICA, which
takes in around $24 million a year to operate the detention center. The facility has been
the target of several lawsuits and ongoing investigations. In June 2020 it became the site
of ICE’s worst deadly COVID-19 outbreak after ICE transferred people there from
detention centers in other states so it could use ICE planes to transport federal agents to
protests in Washington, D.C. Community advocates, centering the experiences of
people detained at ICA-Farmville, along with internal documents obtained through FOIA
litigation, exposed a long history of abuse preceding the COVID-19 outbreak. They
detailed the indiscriminate use of pepper spray, use of restraints, rotten food, and threats
of retaliation. See the 2019 modified contract and 2017 inspection report. - Adelanto Detention Center (GEO Group) in Adelanto, California: Adelanto has been
notorious for abusive conditions since it was converted from a prison to an ICE detention
center in 2011. The DHS Inspector General reported in 2018 on multiple violations of
Otero County Processing Center (Credit: Jordyn Rozensky)
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ICE detention standards and in 2019 documented violations including misuse of
segregation and solitary confinement, people improperly handcuffed and shackled,
inadequate medical care, and nooses found in people’s cells. People detained in
Adelanto have sued GEO Group for wage theft and forced labor. Currently built to hold
1,940 people, GEO Group’s efforts to expand the facility would make it the largest ICE
detention center in the country. See the 2013 modified contract and 2017 inspection
report. - Mesa Verde Detention Facility (GEO Group) in Bakersfield, California: California
state agencies found in February 2019 multiple inadequacies and a lack of oversight at
the Mesa Verde facility. In April 2020, as the pandemic worsened, people detained at the
facility filed a class-action lawsuit against ICE asking to be released. In November 2020,
GEO Group sought to expand the facility. In December 2020, a judge accused ICE
officials of lying to cover up its deliberate indifference to the lives of immigrants in Mesa
Verde. See the 2017 modified contract and 2017 inspection report.
Recommendations
The opaque and corrupt immigration detention system furthers the punitive systems of
incarceration and enforcement that perpetuate racism against Black and Brown communities in
the United States. The billions of tax dollars that currently fund the immigrant detention system
should instead be invested in community-based programming. Many communities have already
developed innovative models for a better and more humane way to support those who need
services during immigration case processing. The following actions are necessary to end the
U.S. government’s reliance on an abusive and wasteful immigration detention system: - Stop detaining children and end the use of family detention, without exception
- Dramatically reduce the number of people in ICE detention: provide everyone in
detention with access to individualized consideration of release while urgently releasing
vulnerable populations, including people at heightened vulnerability to COVID-19 and all
transgender people - Terminate ICE contracts with county jails and private prisons, beginning with the facilities
described in this policy brief which have substantial track records of abuse and
corruption - Terminate proposals for new or expanded detention facilities and refrain from entering
into new detention contracts - Put guidance in place to adopt a presumption of liberty by placing the burden on the
government to meet a high evidentiary standard to continue a person’s detention
Visit NIJC’s Transparency Project online to see the full collection of ICE detention center
contracts and inspection reports obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests.
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