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Saturday, December 29th, 2018

$800 Million in Taxpayer Money Went to Private Prisons Where Migrants Work for Pennies

Author:     Spencer Ackerman and Adam Rawnsley
Source:     Daily Beast
Publication Date:     12.27.18 4:40 AM ET
 Link: $800 Million in Taxpayer Money Went to Private Prisons Where Migrants Work for Pennies
Stephan:   Don't ever let anyone tell you that slavery has ended in the United States. America is a slave state, and one of the worst in the world. Here is some data on just one aspect of the new American slavery. We have five per cent of the world's human population and 25 per cent of the world's prisoners. For a few corporations this slavery is very profitable so, of course, they are in the business of routinely bribing politicians to keep this vile system legal and operating. As to ICE think SS. In my opinion, no ethical person could work for this agency.

For $3 a day, Yesica works the graveyard shift in the kitchens of the for-profit immigration prison where she is locked up.

Each morning, at 1 a.m., the guards of the Joe Corley Detention Facility in southeast Texas rouse Yesica and the 35 other women who share a dormitory-style room. Work begins an hour later and lasts through sunrise, ending at 8 a.m. Yesica does everything from cooking breakfast, to serving her fellow detainees, to cleaning up.

Even at $3, toiling in the kitchen pays better than sweeping prison corridors, which pays the Immigration and Customs Enforcement-stipulated minimum of $1 a day. The work, officially speaking, isn’t mandatory. But “since there’s absolutely nothing to do” inside, Yesica said, detainees work to keep at bay the stress of not knowing when they’ll be released—or if they’ll be deported.

Yesica, 23, fled her native El Salvador after MS-13 persecuted her for being a lesbian. The brutal gang, which the Trump administration uses to demonize immigrants like her, murdered her father, and she came to the United States to seek the safety of rejoining family here. She […]

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