Reports

Communities Not Cages: A Just Transition from Immigration Detention Economies examines the role of immigration detention in local economies and outlines a vision for a just transition away from economies dependent on detention centers. The report compiles research on prisons, economic development, and trend lines in adult and youth incarceration around the country, and draws on interviews with more than 20 community organizers, advocates, lawyers, and experts on immigration detention and adult and juvenile prison systems.

A Toxic Relationship: Private Prisons and U.S. Immigration Detention, builds on the overwhelming evidence that the privatization of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention exacerbates due process violations, egregious conditions and transparency concerns that are endemic to the immigration detention system. In addition, the report amplifies the experiences of 42 individuals who were or are held in privately-run detention centers.

Presented here is research identifying the companies most heavily invested in the immigration detention business, and charting the increase in their lobbying activities over the last decade — not only in terms of dollars spent but also in terms of the variety of government entities targeted.