Invitation to congressional briefing on imprisonment of immigrants « Detention Watch Network: Monitoring & Challenging Immigration Detention, Immigration Enforcement & Deportation

Invitation to congressional briefing on imprisonment of immigrants « Detention Watch Network: Monitoring & Challenging Immigration Detention, Immigration Enforcement & Deportation

Invitation to congressional briefing on imprisonment of immigrants

September 7, 2012

tags: ACLU, Congressional Briefing, DWN, Justice Strategies, Operation Streamline, private prisons, the Sentencing Project

by DWN Blog

Please join us for a Congressional Briefing, sponsored by Rep. Jared Polis, on Operation Streamline and private for-profit detention and imprisonment of immigrants
Thursday, September 13, 2012 11:00 am
Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2456

On May 20, 2012, a prisoner uprising at the Adams County Correctional Center in Mississippi demonstrated the failure of privately operated immigrant prisons. The disturbance, which left one guard dead and 19 prisoners injured, came after multiple reports by immigrant prisoners of abuse, neglect and even deaths at the facility.  Corrections Corporation of America, a multi-billion dollar private prison operator with a documented track record of rights violations and unsafe conditions, manages the facility.

The Adams County prison is one of approximately a dozen “Criminal Alien Requirement” (CAR) prisons that use taxpayer funds to warehouse immigrants in substandard privately-owned, privately-operated immigrant prisons segregated from the broader Bureau of Prisons population. The proposed 2013 federal budget included 1,000 additional private prison beds designated as “CAR” beds, at an initial cost of $25,865,000.
CAR-contract facilities are expanding due to Operation Streamline, a highly controversial and costly federal prosecution policy, begun in 2005, that criminalizes undocumented immigrants and funnels them into the federal criminal justice system.
The September 13 briefing will showcase new reports by the ACLU of Texas, Justice Strategies, Grassroots Leadership, and The Sentencing Project highlighting the devastating impact of Streamline and CAR-contract facilities on immigrant families and communities.