#endthequota

[civicdirect1-blog]

Meme of the Day: End the Quota - Upcoming Week of Action: August 22-26 - This mass detention is fueled by an inhumane federal policy known as the “detention quota,” which requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to maintain 34,000 spaces for immigrant detention every single day. http://civicaction.center/meme/end-quota Source: American Friends Service Committee

[guatepolitics]

The United States government manages the largest immigration detention system in the world. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), oversees the detention of hundreds of thousands of individuals charged with civil immigration violations each year in a sprawling network of over 200 immigration jails across the U.S. In 2009, Congress began including a requirement to fund a minimum number of beds (currently 34,000) dedicated to detention at any given time in its annual appropriations bill. Since the policy, often referred to as the national detention bed quota, went into effect, the number of people detained each year has increased from 383,524 in FY (fiscal year) 2009 to a record breaking 477,000 in FY 2012.

In the last decade the detention system has grown by 75 percent, an expansion that depends heavily on ICE’s increasing use of private contractors to operate and provide services at immigration jails across the country. Sixty-two percent of immigration detention beds are operated by private prison companies, such as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the Geo Group (GEO). Many government-owned facilities also rely on privately contracted detention-related services such as food, security, and transportation. This interdependent relationship with private industry has produced a set of government-sanctioned detention quotas that ensure profits for the companies involved while incentivizing the incarceration of immigrants. Accordingly, a large portion of the over $2 billion in the FY 2016 budget for detention operations will ultimately go to for-profit contractors.

ICE’s contracts with private detention companies have exacerbated the effects of the federal detention bed quota by imposing local “lockup” quotas, contractual provisions that obligate ICE to pay for a minimum number of immigration detention beds at specific facilities, referred to in contracts as “guaranteed minimums.” Because guaranteed minimums require payment to private contractors whether beds are filled or not, ICE faces considerable pressure to fill them. Local lockup quotas that serve to protect the bottom line of private companies thus incentivize the imprisonment of immigrants.

[ronnieveliz]

End all detention and #LGBTQ deportations! #Not1More #LiberationNotDeportation #EndTheQuota (at Santa Ana Police Department)

[ronnieveliz]

#EndTheQuota Regardless of what happens today, we, the people, are fully capable of stopping the deportation machine, abolishing the prison industrial complex, and ensuring no Trans or Queer immigrant siblings are left behind! #Not1More deportation #GSAs4Justice #LGBTQliberation #SolutionsNotExclusions (at Metropolitan Detention Center, Los Angeles)

[upworthy]

The Shameful Truth About Who Makes Money Off Something Called The ‘Immigration Detention Bed Quota'

Sometimes it seems our system of immigration is purposefully broken — for instance, when you see infographics like this one and realize the massive profit that corporations are making off the detention of immigrants. It’s just one of those times you have to shake your head. And your fist.

[18mr]

The true cost of immigration detention?

Way more than you might think.

Learn more about what it costs in dollars--and human dignity--through this beautiful project by Detention Watch Network & the MIT Civic Media Lab.

[ronnieveliz]

#AllofUSagainstBorders I arrived in the United States as a LGBTQ minor after attempting suicide three times due to homophobia, with eight tumors in my chest, latent tuberculosis, and diagnosed with depression. I escaped Perú to attempt a greater life expectancy, love myself, reunite with my dad (I missed him a lot!), work, and continue the fight for freedom in the USA. Forward a few years later, tell me how my "diseases" stopped me from becoming who I am now? Look at me straight in the eyes and tell me why you fear refugee children, LGBTQ asylum seekers, and immigrant family reunification. Tell me how my sacrifices, the color of my skin, my sexual orientation, and immigrant-driven taxes put your pursuit of happiness at risk? Tell me what is it that we need to protect our children from? Is it your criminalization and dehumanization of migrant children, or the prejudice and hate you are coloring into our young generation's minds and hearts? Let's stop the detention and deportation machinery. #EndTheQuota #Not1More #LiberationNotDeportation #LGBTQ #MigrantLivesMatter (at Peru to United States)

[culturestrike]

Facts via Immigration Policy Center.