End Abuse in Our Privatized Immigrant-Only Prisons

End Abuse in Our Privatized Immigrant-Only Prisons

End Abuse in Our Privatized Immigrant-Only Prisons

A recent investigation published by The Nation found that dozens of men had died in disturbing circumstances in privatized, immigrant-only prisons. Join The Nation, the ACLU, Detention Watch Network, and Grassroots Leadership in calling on the White House to end this shadow private prison system.

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What’s going on?

The federal prison system currently includes 11 prisons called Criminal Alien Requirement facilities. Built to house non-citizens convicted of federal crimes—many of whom were arrested for simply crossing the border—CAR prisons are managed on a day-to-day basis not by the Bureau of Prisons, but by private companies. These privatized facilities are held to lower standards than others in the BOP system—with devastating results for the men held there.

These men are suffering from shocking neglect of their health. For an investigation published in The Nation, reporter Seth Freed Wessler obtained 9,000 pages of healthcare records from these immigrant-only prisons. Medical doctors who Wessler asked to examine the records said that in one third of the reviewable cases, inadequate medical care likely contributed to premature deaths. Men sick with cancer, HIV/AIDS, mental disabilities, and liver and heart disease faced critical delays in obtaining care that may have saved their lives.

A previous report published by the ACLU also found widespread abuse and neglect within CAR prisons, and further confirms that the United States must end this privatized, immigrant-only prison system.

What can I do?

We must put a stop to the grave abuses of the CAR facilities. The Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections, a bipartisan group tasked with developing practical, data-driven policy changes in our federal corrections system, recommended a large package of legislative and executive reforms that will substantially reduce the number of people in BOP custody—so we don’t need to build more poorly managed prisons.

We’ve joined with the ACLU, Detention Watch Network, and Grassroots Leadership to call on the Bureau of Prisons to adhere to these recommendations as well as to cease new solicitations for CAR prisons contracts and immediately phase-out all existing CAR prisons. Sign our petition and share it on Twitter and Facebook.

Read More

For more on these prisons, read Seth Freed Wessler’s investigation and check out our explanation of how it came to be.

Support independent journalism that does not fall in line

Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth. 

The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more. 

But this journalism is possible only with your support.

This March, The Nation needs to raise $50,000 to ensure that we have the resources for reporting and analysis that sets the record straight and empowers people of conscience to organize. Will you donate today?

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