What Must Be Known: Dwight, IL ICE Detention Facility
There is an interest by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to construct a new immigration detention center in Dwight, Illinois. About 1 ½ hours northeast of Peoria, the $20 million project could possibly bring 280 jobs to the small community in Central Illinois. The detention center will be managed by Immigration Centers of America (ICA), a private-prison corporation, with upwards of 1200 beds needed to warehouse humans.
What we must remember:
-Private prison corporations are notorious for treating their workers poorly. They have an anti-union history, long hours, and less benefits. Furthermore, with ever-shifting policy at the federal level, there is no guarantee this facility will be used for more than a couple years until it is shuttered.
-Immigrant detention centers, largely operated by private corporations, are rife with abuse. Abuse, neglect, inadequate medical care, and sexual assault occur every year in the thousands.
-Currently, there are seven federal lawsuits all alleging privately run immigrant detention centers are coercing immigrants into slave labor for less than $1 a day. ICA claims there is a waiting list of 200+ detainees vying for jobs in the at their other facility. But being imprisoned 24 hours with little to do, would make anyone desperate for some activity.
-Regardless of whether an immigrant performs any labor while imprisoned, they still generate a profit for someone from merely being imprisoned. Clothing, electric, water, and sewer utilities, food, basic hygiene, medical care, communications: all of these are just another price-tag added to the imprisoned immigrant body. Dwight will receive $1 a day per bed. This could generate $273,000 to $438,000 per year for the village.
-ALL prisons–privately or publicly operated–generate profit off of the enslavement of a human being.
-There is no logical reason (except for profit) to imprison immigrants awaiting disposition of their immigration cases. Alternatives to detention (ATD) have existed for a long time and boast a 99% compliance rate with requirements such as court hearings and immigration appointments. The Department of Homeland Security estimated in its Congressional Budget Justification for FY 2018 that the average cost per ATD participant would be $4.50 per day. In comparison, it costs the taxpayers $133.99 per day to hold an adult immigrant in detention. The only reason to imprison immigrants is profit.
-The human beings imprisoned have not been charged, let alone convicted of any crimes. Immigration decisions are by law considered administrative functions, akin to local lawn ordinances, NOT criminal offenses. Keeping someone confined against their will in this case for the purpose of profit is enslavement, violating the 13th amendment.
-Inmates in jails, prisons, and other detention facilities are counted for state and federal representation in the geographic residence where they are imprisoned. Yet, these prisoners have no ability to vote. This would give Dwight inflated numbers for representation at the state and federal level.
-Those imprisoned may actually be refugees or asylum seekers. Their imprisonment would only add insult to their already perilous situations.
-ICE uses nefarious tactics to undermine the civil liberties & freedoms of all people. A common tactic is to move immigrants constantly across the country. The goal is to make it difficult for families and attorneys to find these people, which serves to isolate the individuals until they eventually acquiesce to deportation.
As residents of Central Illinois, it is our duty to resist the creation of any more ICE detention centers. The fight happening right here is akin to slavery. It is akin to Japanese internment and all the other American horrors we’re ashamed to admit. It intersects with the violence & commodification committed against black & brown bodies by mass incarceration. Where will you be?
This article was originally published on Strangecornersofthought.com.
