Mandatory Immigrant Detention is about Profit, not Security

With so much misinformation circulating about the nature of immigration, there needs to be some clarifications made between the issue of being in the U.S. without documentation, i.e. being undocumented, which is not a criminal offense but a civil issue, verses being caught entering the country illegally, which is a felony. The former case is the situation for the overwhelming majority of those in the country who are undocumented. Most enter the U.S. legally and overstay their time allotted to remain in the U.S. For the latter case, law enforcement must capture the person/s entering and must testify for these cases to be prosecuted.

The injustice in the immigrant detention system is the use of mandatory detention for all undocumented cases. There is no reason to detain anyone for a pending immigration case that is in nature a civil issue. Mandatory detention has been going on since the late ‘80s, was massively expanded under a law known as IIRAIRA, a Clinton law, and is what has led to these injustices (Detention Watch Network). This is why Trump says this is a democrat law. He fails to mention that separating children from families is not required in the law. Mandatory detention is the problem here. It is unnecessary, and draconian. Mandatory detention should only occur for actual criminal offenses, not for a lack of paperwork and it should never be mandatory.

The for-profit prison industry is behind this entire boondoggle. This is the absolute worst case of government waste the U.S. has ever engaged in. It is corporate welfare at its most exploitative. It is exploitative of immigrants, based on a minor offense similar to a misdemeanor, and it is exploitative of the U.S. taxpayer. 

The remedy for these injustices, frankly, is to open the border (Call For Open Borders). If we call for free markets, then this must include the free movement of labor. Let the economic forces police the labor market. It will equalize, the costs of doing business will go down, and Mexican workers will no longer be at a competitive disadvantage that exploits their labor.

Mexican workers are exploited at every turn, whether it is through poor labor, poor pay, no benefits, and no recourse should they become injured, or by the system that detains them taking advantage of their undocumented status. Again, keep in mind that being undocumented is not a criminal offense and one for which mandatory detention is inappropriate.

Trump’s call for the detention of children with families is no different from the internment of Japanese families during WWII. These immigration policies that underwrite the private-prison industry take advantage of American racism and xenophobia for the sake of profit. This immigration-industrial complex is designed for no more than profiteering from the suffering of desperate people.