COMMUNITIES
NOT CAGES
,

I/

A JUST TRANSITION FROM
IMMIGRATION DETENTION ECONOMIES

,

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This report was authored by Bob Libal with contributions from Setareh
Ghandehari and Silky Shah. Aimee Nichols provided additional suggestions
and edits.
The following people provided their valuable insights and expertise in interviews
with the author: Lizbeth Abeln, Heidi Altman, Jose Asuncion, Xochitl Bervera,
Bethany Carson, Liz Castillo, Jasmine Heiss, Marcela Hernandez, Gregory Hooks,
Jorge Loweree, Claudia Muñoz, Jack Norton, Barbara Peña, Nicole Porter, Grisel
Ruiz, Luis Suarez, Bárbara Suarez Galeano, Deanna Van Buren, Gabriela Viera, and
Jared Williams.

Design: Martyn Andrés Bonaventura
Cover Image: Fernando Lopez

Copyright 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................... O4
The State Of Immigration Detention Today .................. O9
Who Profits From ICE’s Detention Economy? ...............

14

Decarceration Of Prison And Detention Systems .......... 18
A Just Transition For Detention Communities ............... 24
Conclusion ...................................................................... 28

INTRODUCTION
Every day, thousands of people
are cruelly deprived of their
liberty in a vast system of mass
immigration detention in the
United States. For years, detained
people and advocates have
organized to close troubled
immigration detention centers
and exposed the horrors of
a detention system rife with
extreme negligence, abuse, and
even death.
Numerous studies document
that detention is also wholly
unnecessary.1 Despite
overwhelming evidence that
immigrants successfully navigate
their immigration cases in
community, the immigration
detention system — now with over
230 facilities in the United States
— has seen exponential growth
across the last three presidential
administrations. In just the last
four years, the number of people
detained by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) grew
dramatically to an average daily
population of more than 50,000
people in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, by
far the most in the agency’s history.

This unprecendented expansion
of detention was propelled not by
changing migration trends, but
by a resurgence of nativist and
xenophobic rhetoric translated
into harsher policies towards both
arriving immigrants and long-term
non-citizen residents. Detention
expansion continued under the
Trump administration despite
draconian enforcement policies
such as the Migrant Protection
Protocols (MPP), the expansion
of the border wall, and Title
42, meant to keep people from

“

The astronomical
growth of ICE
detention over
the last 15 years
is in many ways
an outlier.

”

1 For example, see: National Immigrant Justice Center. A Better Way: Community-Based Programming
As An Alternative To Immigrant Incarceration. April 22,2019. And Vera Institute of Justice. Evidence Shows
That Most Immigrants Appear for Immigration Court Hearings. October 2020.

PAGE 4

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Photo Credit: Fernando Lopez

arriving at the border or seeking
asylum once they did.
Due to a variety of factors,
including detention numbers
trending down, an ongoing
global pandemic, and a shifting
political landscape, the Biden
administration has an opportunity
to begin the process of phasing
out immigration detention
entirely. This report addresses one
stated barrier to detention center

closures — the economic impacts
of detention centers on
host communities.
ICE’s detention budget has grown
steadily since the creation of
the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) nearly 20 years
ago. In FY 2020 the immigration
detention budget alone was
nearly $3.2 billion, 3.5 times what
it was in 2005.2 In FY 2021, it was
reduced to $2.8 billion following

2 ICE detention 2005-2018 budget figures from J. Rachel Reyes. Immigration Detention: Recent Trends
and Scholarship. Center for Migration Studies. / ICE detention 2019-2020 budget figures from The
Department of Homeland Security. 2021 Budget in Brief.

PAGE 5

a steep reduction in the number
of people detained during the
COVID-19 pandemic.3
The astronomical growth of
ICE detention over the last
15 years is in many ways an
outlier. Many state and federal
adult and juvenile correctional
systems are incarcerating fewer
people, spending less money on
incarceration, and closing prisons
and detention facilities. In some
cases, prison and jail systems have
been downsized with the input of
community advisory panels, and
in many places prisons and youth
detention centers have been
closed and repurposed into nonpunitive institutions.
Many community advocates and
elected leaders cite economic
concerns as an argument against
detention center closures. While
there is little research into the
economic impact of ICE detention
centers on local communities,
numerous studies show prisons
do not foster long-term economic
growth, especially in persistently

poor communities. In fact, prison
construction correlates with
lower increases in employment,
retail sales, household wages,
housing units, and home values
as compared to towns without
prisons.4
Still, local officials say their
communities need to identify
alternative forms of development
should detention centers
close. This report looks at the
literature on prisons, economic
development, and trend lines in
adult and youth incarceration
around the country, as well as
data about the immigration
detention system. It draws on
interviews with more than 20
community organizers, advocates,
lawyers, and experts on
immigration detention and adult
and juvenile prison systems.
During the COVID-19 pandemic,
the number of people detained
by ICE fell to lows not seen in 20
years. As of April 1, 2021, ICE’s
detained population was 14,077.5
The emptying of detention

3 Committee on Appropriations Vice Chair Patrick Leahy. Summary The Department Of Homeland
Security Fiscal Year 2021 Appropriations Bill. December 21, 2020.
4 See, for example: Terry L. Besser and Margaret M. Hanson, The Development of Last Resort: The Impact
of New State Prisons on Small Town Economies, 2003. Glasmeier AK, Farrigan T. The Economic Impacts of
the Prison Development Boom on Persistently Poor Rural Places. International Regional Science Review.
Review: 2007;30(3):274-299. Hooks, Gregory, et al. Revisiting the Impact of Prison Building on Job Growth:
Education, Incarceration, and County-Level Employment, 1976–2004, 11 January 2021.
5 ICE Guidance on COVID-19. COVID-19 ICE Detainee Statistics by Facility. Detained Population as of
4/01/2021. Accessed April 2, 2021.

PAGE 6

centers over the past year has
further called into question
the purpose of immigration
detention, a punitive system
which only exists to ensure
immigrants are in compliance
with their immigration cases.
In fact, recent data shows
that non-detained immigrants
attend their court dates at
rates nearing 100 percent.6 The
Biden administration should

take this opportunity to release
people currently detained and
allow them to navigate their
immigration cases in community,
while placing a moratorium
on detaining people anew.
Further, the U.S. government
should implement the following
policies and recommendations
that begin to phase out the
use of immigration detention
completely.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
• The Biden administration
should begin phasing out the
use of immigration detention
by immediately ending
detention center contracts
and halting expansion
efforts. As of April 2021, the
number of people detained
by ICE was 14,077. As the
COVID-19 pandemic continues,
the administration should
immediately release people
from immigration detention
as an urgent public health

measure and implement
policies that begin shrinking
the detention system. These
policies include ending family
detention, releasing individuals
and families to navigate
their cases in community,
halting transfers within the
immigration detention system
and from prisons and jails,
ending contracts with private
prison corporations and state
and local governments, and
halting all expansion efforts.

6 The Vera Institute for Justice found that nearly all non-detained immigrants with legal representation
appeared in court. See Vera Institute of Justice. Evidence Shows That Most Immigrants Appear for
Immigration Court Hearings. October 2020. Similarly, TRAC found that 99% of asylum-seekers who were
not detained attended every one of their court hearings. TRAC. Record Number of Asylum Cases in FY
2019. January 8, 2020.

PAGE 7

• The Biden administration and
Congress should significantly
reduce immigration
detention funding. The Biden
administration and Congress
should rein in detention costs,
and set a goal of year-over-year
reductions in ICE detention
funding. As a start, FY 2022
detention funding levels should
be cut by 75 percent from the
2021 detention budget.
• The Biden administration
should end detention at the
border by decriminalizing
migration and restoring access
to asylum. President Biden has
already taken steps towards
rolling back Trump’s antiimmigrant regime by ending
the racist Muslim and African
bans and suspending the
Migrant Protection Protocols
(MPP). He should go further,
however, to completely end
MPP and other policies that
turn people away at the
border or funnel them into
the detention system, end
the Title 42 closure of the
border which public health
experts have said has no
public health justification,7
and end all other fast-track
7

removal policies which result
in detention and deportation.
The administration should
also decriminalize the act
of migration to shrink the
pipeline into federal immigrant
incarceration and detention.
• The Biden administration
and Congress should set up
a Just Transition Economic
Development Fund. Using cost
savings from reduced spending
on detention, Congress and
the administration should
create a $1 billion fund housed
outside of the Department
of Homeland Security to
provide grants to communities
transitioning away from
economies dependent on
federal detention. The multiyear fund should be guided
by an advisory committee of
formerly detained people,
economic development
advisors, and elected and
community leaders from
communities transitioning away
from detention economies
while investing in economic
development opportunities not
tied to other punitive forms of
infrastructure.

For example, see Letter to Acting HHS Secretary Cochran and CDC Director Walensky. January 28, 2021.

PAGE 8

THE STATE OF IMMIGRATION
DETENTION TODAY
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) operates
a network of more than 230
immigration detention centers8
through direct contracts with
private prison corporations,
intergovernmental service
agreements with local
governments, and dedicated
facilities owned by ICE itself.9
According to a Government
Accountability Office (GAO)
report released in January, ICE
used about 180 of these facilities
in FY 2019.10
People in ICE detention include
those seeking asylum, long-time
permanent residents facing
deportation proceedings after
an interaction with the criminal

legal system, and individuals and
families awaiting immigration
court dates.
ICE’s detention system has an
extensively documented history
of egregious conditions including
lack of basic hygienic products,
inadequate and rotten food,
physical and sexual abuse,
exposure to toxic chemicals,11
and medical abuse and neglect.12
A growing number of people in
ICE detention have spoken out
or protested their confinement,
including by participating in
hunger strikes to bring attention
to the dire situation. They have at
times been met with retaliation
including alleged legal threats to
deny their asylum cases13 and the

8 ERO Custody Management Division, Dedicated and non-dedicated facilities list as of April 6, 2020.
9 ICE detention centers include facilities with dedicated IGSAs which only detain people for ICE and nondedicated IGSAs which detain people for ICE in facilities with other incarcerated people, direct contracts
with private prisons, family detention centers, contracts built off of riders with US Marshals detention
centers, and Service Processing Centers owned by ICE itself. For more information on these kinds of
facilities, see National Immigrant Justice Center. Cut the Contracts: It’s Time to End ICE’s Corrupt Detention
Management System. March 2021.
10 United States Government Accountability Office. Report to the Chairman Committee on Homeland
Security House of Representatives. Immigration Detention Actions Needed to Improve Planning,
Documentation, and Oversight of Detention Facility Contracts. January 2021.
11 Amy Lieu. “EPA says private prison company poisoned immigrants at ICE facility for a decade.”
American Independent. March 24, 2021.
12 For example, see Detention Watch Network. Courting Catastrophe: How ICE is Gambling with
Immigrant Lives Amid a Global Pandemic. March 2020.
13 Meredith Clark. “Immigrants at ICE facility face retaliation during hunger strike.” MSNBC. March 11, 2014.

PAGE 9

Average Daily Population in Immigration Detention†

50,000

40,000

30,000

20,000

10,000

0
1995

2000

2005

use of riot police and pepper spray.14
ICE’s detention system has proven
traumatic and deadly to those
it detains. As of September
2020, 217 people had died in ICE
custody since 2004. In FY 2020
alone, 21 people died in ICE
detention, including eight from
COVID-19. This was the highest

2010

2015

2020

number of deaths in ICE custody
since 2005.15
During the COVID-19 pandemic,
ICE refused to heed calls of
detained people, public health
experts, advocates, and even
federal judges to free people,
halt transfers, and take other
public health precautions. The

14 Jose Olivares. “ICE’s Immigration Detainees Protested Lack Of Coronavirus Precautions — And Swat-like
Private-prison Guards Pepper-sprayed Them.” The Intercept. May 5, 2020.
15 There were 213 deaths from 2004 to September 2020 according to Catherine Shoichet. “The Death
Toll in ICE Custody Is the Highest it’s Been in 15 Years.” CNN. September 30, 2020. Another four deaths in
detention were recorded by AILA since the article’s publication. AILA. Deaths at Adult Detention Centers.
March 17, 2021.
† Sources: 1994–2003, 2004–2017, 2018–2019, 2020

PAGE 10

results were predictable, with
ICE detention centers becoming
hotbeds of COVID-19 infection,
and contributing to an estimated
additional 245,000 COVID cases
in areas surrounding detention
centers between May and
August 2020.16
Despite these failures, the
detention system has expanded
dramatically. The number of
people detained in ICE custody
increased from an average daily
population of just over 21,000 in
FY 200317 to more than 50,000 in
FY 2019.18
As FY 2020 began, ICE detained
an average of 48,628 people on
any given day. Amid the COVID-19
pandemic, the number of people
detained by ICE has fallen to lows
not seen in 20 years. By the end
of FY 2020, this number dropped
to an average of 33,417, in part
because more than 197,000
immigrant adults and children

were expelled from the country
without the ability to seek relief
before an immigration judge
under Title 42 emergency health
orders.19 As of April 1, 2021, ICE’s
detained population was 14,077.20
ICE’s total budget nearly tripled
from $3.3 billion in 2003 to $8.4
billion in FY 2020.21 ICE’s overall
budget was reduced only slightly
to $7.97 billion for FY 2021.22 ICE’s
budget for custody operations
(detention) has increased even
more rapidly, jumping from
$864 million in 2005 to nearly
$3.2 billion in FY 2020, nearly
equal to the size of the agency’s
entire 2003 budget. In recent
years advocates have fought
hard to successfully block at least
$12 billion in additional funds
to ICE and Customs and Border
Protection (CBP). Despite these
efforts and the recent dramatic
drop in detention numbers, ICE’s
FY 2021 detention budget, passed
by Congress and signed by Trump,

16 Detention Watch Network. Hotbeds of Infection: How ICE Detention Contributed to the Spread of
COVID-19 in the United States. December 2020.
17 Even 2003 detention rates were high by historical standards. In 1994, a decade before the creation of
the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s predecessor agency, Immigration and Naturalization Services
(INS), detained an average of 6,785 people daily. See: Alison Siskin, Immigration-Related Detention: Current
Legislative Issues.
18 ACLU, Human Rights Watch, National Immigrant Justice Center, Justice-Free Zones: U.S. Immigration
Detention Under the Trump Administration, April 2020.
19 Members of Congress Call for End to Expulsions of Children, Demand Answers from DHS and CDC, November 2, 2020.
20 ICE Guidance on COVID-19. COVID-19 ICE Detainee Statistics by Facility. Detained Population as of 4/01/2021.
21 American Immigration Council. The Cost of Immigration Enforcement and Border Security. July 7, 2020.
22 National Council of State Legislatures. Overview of FY 2021 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. January 4, 2021.

PAGE 11

ICE Detention Budget †
Million USD

3,000

2,000

1,000

0
2005

2010

continues to provide funding of
$2.8 billion for 34,000 detention
beds23, more than twice the
current detained population.
Funding for immigration
detention is supposed to be
constrained by Congressional
appropriations. However, under
the Trump administration, ICE
employed a multi-year strategy to

2015

2020

overspend its allocated detention
funding and then demand
supplemental funding at the end
of each fiscal year.24 In addition,
ICE moved money appropriated
to other DHS agencies, including
Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), the Coast
Guard, and Homeland Security
Investigations to meet its

23 Committee on Appropriations Vice Chair Patrick Leahy. Summary The Department Of Homeland
Security Fiscal Year 2021 Appropriations Bill. December 21, 2020.
24 Jack Herrera. “ICE Is Hugely Overspending Its Detention Budget — Again.” Pacific Standard. May 21, 2019.
† ICE detention 2005-2018 budget figures from J. Rachel Reyes. Center for Migration Studies. Immigration
Detention: Recent Trends and Scholarship./ ICE detention 2019-2020 budget figures from The Department
of Homeland Security. 2021 Budget in Brief.

PAGE 12

detention expansion drive.25
For FY 2021, the Trump
administration requested that
taxpayers fund ICE custody
operations at $4.1 billion, in part
for expanding family detention,
for a total detention capacity of
60,000. Despite demands from
advocacy groups and a House
proposal that would have further
reduced capacity, Congress
ultimately approved $2.8 billion
dollars for ICE to fund 34,000
detention beds,26 far exceeding
the 16,135 people who were
detained on average by ICE in
December when the budget
was passed.27
According to a report by the
American Civil Liberties Union,
Human Rights Watch, and
National Immigrant Justice Center,
the Trump administration opened
over 40 new ICE detention
centers. By the end of 2019, more
than 25 percent of people in ICE
custody were held in these newlycontracted facilities, most of
which are more than two hours

from a metro area. Many were
formerly used as prisons, and
are operated by private prison
companies.
A Government Accountability
Office (GAO) report released
earlier this year found that ICE
did not follow its own processes
entering into these new contracts.
The GAO found that 28 of the
40 new contracts signed during
the Trump administration “did
not have documentation from
ICE field offices showing a need
for the space, outreach to local
officials, or the basis for ICE’s
decisions to enter into them,
as required by ICE’s process.”28
Furthermore, more than 80
percent of detention center
contracts are Intergovernmental
Service Agreements (IGSAs)
between ICE and a local
government.These contracts allow
for the use of county or city jails
and can also be subcontracted
to a private prison company.
IGSAs allow DHS to use less
stringent competition and past

25 Colleen Long. “US moves FEMA, Coast Guard money to fund border programs.” Associated Press.
August 27, 2019.
26 Committee on Appropriations Vice Chair Patrick Leahy. Summary The Department Of Homeland
Security Fiscal Year 2021 Appropriations Bill. December 21, 2020.
27 Immigration and Customs Enforcement. FY21 ICE detention statistics as of January 2, 2021. This
number includes both those detained in adult and family residential centers.
28 United States Government Accountability Office. Report to the Chairman Committee on Homeland
Security House of Representatives. Immigration Detention Actions Needed to Improve Planning,
Documentation, and Oversight of Detention Facility Contracts. January 2021.

PAGE 13

performance reviews.29 ICE field
offices themselves raised concerns
about some of the new contracts,
including their remote nature and
transportation difficulties as well

as histories of poor conditions,
deaths, and abuse. These
concerns were overruled by ICE
headquarters which justified the
new facilities.30

WHO PROFITS FROM
ICE’S DETENTION ECONOMY?
Detention centers are deeply
harmful and at times deadly. The
U.S. immigration detention system
— which has been condemned by
people in detention, their loved
ones, and advocates as unjust
and unnecessary — is designed to
incentivize the incarceration of
immigrants as a money making
scheme for corporations and local
governments.
While the argument against
detention is fundamentally a
moral one, local debates over
immigration detention often
center around the economic
impact of detention centers on
local economies. Little or no
published research examines the
economic impact of immigration
detention centers on local
communities.
29
30

IBID.
IBID.

However, ample research over the
course of nearly 20 years shows
that prisons more broadly do
not foster economic growth. In
2003, a study by Terry Besser and
Margaret Hansen demonstrated
that towns with new prisons
experienced lower increases

“

Ample research
over the course
of over 20 years
shows that
prisons broadly
do not foster
economic growth.

”
PAGE 14

Photo Credit: Steve Pavey

in employment, retail sales,
household wages, housing units
and home values.31 In 2007, Amy
Glasmeier and Tracey Farrigan
compared 55 rural counties with
prisons constructed between
1985 and 1995 to similar counties
without prisons finding “little
evidence of prisons fostering
economic growth especially in
persistently poor communities.”32
Similarly, in 2010, Greg Hooks and
his colleagues found that prisons

impede economic growth in rural
counties, “especially in counties
that lag behind in educational
attainment.” This built upon
Hooks’ 2004 findings that
counties that built prisons in slowgrowing rural economies between
1969 and 1994 ended up worse
off than comparative counties
that did not build prisons.33
The positive economic impact of
detention centers on for-profit
prison corporations’ bottom lines

31 Terry L. Besser and Margaret M. Hanson, The Development of Last Resort: The Impact of New State
Prisons on Small Town Economies, 2003.
32 Glasmeier AK, Farrigan T. The Economic Impacts of the Prison Development Boom on Persistently Poor
Rural Places. International Regional Science Review. 2007.
33 Hooks, Gregory, et al. Revisiting the Impact of Prison Building on Job Growth: Education,
Incarceration, and County-Level Employment, 1976–2004, 11 January 2010.

PAGE 15

is much more clear. By 2020,
81 percent of all immigrants in
detention were locked up in forprofit facilities. CoreCivic and GEO
Group (GEO) are the two publicly
traded corporations that operate
most of ICE’s for-profit detention
beds. In 2019, together CoreCivic
and GEO brought in more than
$1.2 billion in revenue from ICE
contracts, with approximately
29 percent of each company’s
revenue coming from ICE.34 35
Both publicly traded private prison
companies are also financially
troubled. CoreCivic and GEO’s
access to capital markets has
been restricted in part due to
divestment activism.36 Bond-rating
agency Fitch even withdrew its
bond rating of CoreCivic noting
that “the private prison sector also
faces negative headwinds from
social pressures, and longer-term
correctional trends are shifting
away from imprisonment of
nonviolent offenders and toward
rehabilitation and reentry

for minor drug offenses and other
misdemeanors.”37
Despite this, ICE has increasingly
turned to long-term contracts
with private prison companies.
Even as the number of people
in detention has declined
dramatically due the pandemic,
ICE continues to solicit requests
for information for detention
centers, including an active
contract solicitation for a 700-bed
detention center within 50 miles
of Miami.38
Last summer, ICE signed 10-year
contracts with CoreCivic for the
T. Don Hutto Residential Center
and Houston Contract Detention
Facility and with GEO for its South
Texas ICE Processing Center.
CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger
told investors in a subsequent
conference call that ICE signing
long-term contracts was a
sign that the agency wanted
to maintain its high levels of
detention regardless of

34 CoreCivic, Inc. 2019 10K.
35 GEO Group, Inc. 2019 10K.
36 Morgan Simon. “Is This The Beginning Of The End For Private Prisons? The Market Seems To Think So.”
Forbes. August 20, 2020.
37 Fitch Ratings. “Fitch Affirms and Withdraws CoreCivic’s Ratings; Outlook Negative.” December 15,
2020. Accessed December 22, 2020.
38 US Immigration And Customs Enforcement. Contract Detention Facility - Miami AOR. Notice IDMIAAORCDF.
Original Published Date: Sep 18, 2020. Updated Published Date: Dec 14, 2020. Accessed January 11, 2020.

PAGE 16

Photo Credit: Grassroots Leadership

a potential change in presidential
administrations.39
ICE contracts have also proven
profitable to local government
entities serving as intermediaries
through Intergovernmental
Service Agreements. Many IGSAs
are pass-through agreements
wherein a local government
essentially subcontracts with a
private prison corporation to
operate a facility. ICE often prefers
to enter into IGSAs with local

governments because the agency
can bring facilities online more
quickly, bypassing competitive
bidding and past performance
review requirements.40
Some of these private contractors
pay the local government
fees, though ICE does not put
restrictions on these payments nor
track the total amount of money
local governments receive from
IGSAs. In one case, the California
State Auditor found that the City

39 Edited Transcript of CXW.N earnings conference call or presentation 6-Aug-20.
40 United States Government Accountability Office. Report to the Chairman Committee on Homeland
Security House of Representatives. Immigration Detention Actions Needed to Improve Planning,
Documentation, and Oversight of Detention Facility Contracts. January 2021.

PAGE 17

of Adelanto was collecting around
$1 million a year — $50,000 for an
annual administrative fee, $1 per
bed per day (whether occupied
or not), and $339,000 for police
to handle detention-related issues
— from its IGSA detention facility

operated by GEO. ICE officials told
the Government Accountability
Office that they are aware of
agreements where private prison
corporations pay IGSA holders
between 50¢ and $3.50 per
detained person.41

DECARCERATION OF PRISON
AND DETENTION SYSTEMS
As noted above, after years of
astronomical detention growth,
the number of people detained in
the system dramatically reduced
during the COVID-19 pandemic,
in part because of the Title 42
closure of the Southern border
and legally dubious expulsion of
asylum-seekers. Still, the overall
trend of ICE detention has
been one of consistent increase
over the course of the last two
decades.
But not all systems of
incarceration have followed this
trend line in recent years. In fact,
many adult prison, pre-trial jail,

and juvenile detention systems
have reduced their incarcerated
populations, shrunk their
budgets, and closed (and in some
cases repurposed) prisons and
detention centers.
Between 2010 and 2019,
the cumulative state prison
population declined by more than
148,000, for a ten year reduction
of over ten percent. Similarly,
the federal prison population
incarcerated by the Federal
Bureau of Prisons over the same
time period decreased by more
than 34,000, a ten year reduction
of more than 15 percent.42 Over

41 IBID.
42 Data from State and Federal prison populations 2018: E. Ann Carson, Bureau of Justice Statistics,
Prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, December 31, 1978-2018, Date
of version: 12/9/2019, and State and Federal prison populations 2019: BJS: Author: E. Ann Carson, Ph.D.,
BJS Statistician, Report title: Prisoners in 2019 NCJ 255115, Data Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Federal
Justice Statistics Program, 2019 (preliminary); National Corrections Reporting Program, 2018; National
Prisoner Statistics, 2009-2019; Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2004; and
Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016

PAGE 18

State Prison Population†
1,500,000

1,000,000

500,000

0
2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

Federal Prison Population†
250,000

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

0
2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

† Data from State and Federal prison populations 2018: E. Ann Carson, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners under the
jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, December 31, 1978-2018, Date of version: 12/9/2019, and
State and Federal prison populations 2019: BJS: Author: E. Ann Carson, Ph.D., BJS Statistician, Report title: Prisoners
in 2019 NCJ 255115, Data Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Federal Justice Statistics Program, 2019 (preliminary);
National Corrections Reporting Program, 2018; National Prisoner Statistics, 2009-2019; Survey of Inmates in State and
Federal Correctional Facilities, 2004; and Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016

PAGE 19

the past decade, prisons and
juvenile detention centers have
closed rapidly. Between 2011 and
2016, 94 state prisons and juvenile
detention centers closed bringing
48,000 prison beds offline.43
There are cautionary tales,
however. In 2017, Louisiana,
which has one of the highest
rates of incarceration in the
world, passed sentencing reforms
that aimed to reduce the state
prison population. In the years
that followed, thousands of
prison beds emptied, leaving
many communities reeling from
the consequent loss of jobs
and revenue from the state.
At the same time the Trump
administration was on an
immigration detention expansion
spree and saw an opportunity in
Louisiana for ICE to secure new
detention contracts.44 By 2020,
ICE had contracted with six new
facilities for an additional capacity
of more than 6,100 beds for
immigration detention.45
Louisiana advocates had not
anticipated the impact that the
reduction of the incarcerated
population would have and

that these prisons could be used
by other agencies. Expecting
pushback, some states developed
transition planning committees
to ensure that prisons closed even
when faced with opposition from
host communities or prison guard
unions. New York and Michigan
were among the states where
state departments of correction
closed the most prisons.
In her report for The Sentencing
Project, Nicole Porter describes
the New York model that created
the Empire State Development
office as part of an Economic
Transformation and Facility
Redevelopment Program:
“Legislators authorized the
program to support the
economies of communities
affected by the closure of
certain correctional and
juvenile justice facilities.
Program staff convened
conversations in the affected
communities for the reuse of
closed correctional facilities.
The program also facilitated
an economic development
initiative with business firms
interested in relocating to

43 Nicole D. Porter. Repurposing: New Beginnings for Closed Prisons. The Sentencing Project. December 14, 2016.
44 Noah Lanard. Louisiana Decided to Curb Mass Incarceration. Then ICE Showed Up. Mother Jones. May 1, 2019.
45 ACLU, Human Rights Watch, National Immigrant Justice Center, Justice-Free Zones: U.S. Immigration
Detention Under the Trump Administration, April 2020.

PAGE 20

affected communities through
tax incentives.”46
In addition to closures, some
localities have begun transitioning
local economies and repurposing
prison facilities. Repurposed adult
prison projects include a movie
studio in Staten Island, New
York, a reentry center for women
in Bayview, New York, a small
farm incubator in Peoria, Illinois,
homeless shelters in Gainesville,
Florida and Haywood, North
Carolina, and a distillery in Brushy
Mountain, Tennessee.47

“

In addition to
closures, some
localities have
begun transitioning
local economies
and repurposing
prison facilities.

”

In Atlanta, advocates with Close
the Jail ATL: Communities Over
Cages Campaign organized
for years for the closure of the
Atlanta City Detention Center
(ACDC), a troubled city jail that
had detained both people held
for ICE and those arrested by
local police and charged with
“quality of life crimes” including
public drinking or loitering. In
May 2019, Mayor Keisha Lance
Bottoms signed legislation that
would direct the city to close the
facility and created a task force
for reimagining the use of
the space.48
The Reimagining ACDC Task
Force, composed of 62 members,
including directly impacted
people, advocates, and city
and county officials, created
a planning team to analyze
three key areas: policy changes,
programming, and building
redesign. With the support of
consultants including Designing
Justice + Designing Spaces, the
task force held listening sessions,
town halls, and stakeholder
interviews. In June 2020, the task
force recommended the ACDC be

46 IBID
47 Nicole D. Porter. Repurposing: New Beginnings for Closed Prisons. The Sentencing Project. December 14, 2016.
48 Mayor’s Office of Communications. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Signs Historic Legislation to Close and
Reimagine Atlanta City Detention Center. May 28, 2019. Accessed December 22, 2020.

PAGE 21

closed (with a firm closure date
announced) and demolished.
It further recommended
constructing in ACDC’s place a
Center for Equity and Wellness
to “advance racial and economic
equity, promote restorative
justice, and invest in the wellbeing of individuals, families,
and communities.”49
Perhaps the most useful corollary
to the proposed down-scaling
of the immigration detention
system is the decarceration of
youth incarceration systems over
the last 20 years. As immigration
detention has climbed, the
number of youth in detention has
fallen dramatically. Between 1999
and 2015, the number of youth in
custody in the U.S. decreased by
more than half.50 In the same time
period, ICE detention steadily grew.
Reducing youth incarceration
has allowed lawmakers to close
detention centers. Between 2000
and 2016, 1,275 youth detention
facilities were closed. The biggest
decline was in large facilities
detaining more than
200 children.51

Youth detention facilities
have successfully been
repurposed as teen centers;
commercial spaces; mixed-used,
affordable, sustainable housing
developments; and a tech park
including a medical cannabis
developer. In Beaumont, TX, the

“

Youth detention
facilities have
successfully been
repurposed as teen
centers; commercial
spaces; mixedused, affordable,
sustainable housing
developments; and a
tech park including
a medical cannabis
developer.

”

49 Reimagining the Atlanta City Detention Center Task Force Report. June 2020. Accessed December 22, 2020.
50 Hanna Love, Samantha Harvell, Chloe Warnberg, and Julia Durnan, Transforming Closed Youth Prisons
Repurposing Facilities to Meet Community Needs. The Urban Institute. June 19, 2018.
51 IBID

PAGE 22

National Juvenile Detention Population†
ICE Average Daily Detained Population††

100,000

80,000

60,000

40,000

20,000

0
2000

2005

Al Price Juvenile Correctional
Facility is in the process of being
repurposed into Beaumont Dream
Center, a “one stop shop for
social services” including recovery

2010

2015

2020

services, vocational training, a
drop-in center for veterans, health
services, GED classes, and
micro-villages.52

52 IBID
† Juvenile detention data: Sickmund, M., Sladky, T.J., Kang, W., & Puzzanchera, C. (2019). “Easy Access to
the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement.”.
†† ICE detention data,1994-2003 from Alison Siskin, Immigration-Related Detention: Current Legislative
Issues. CRS Report for Congress. For ICE detention data from 2004-2017 see J. Rachel Reyes Center
for Migration Studies. Immigration Detention: Recent Trends and Scholarship. For 2018-2019 data,
Department of Homeland Security U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Budget Overview. Fiscal
Year 2021 Congressional Justification. For 2020 data: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE
Facilities Data, EOFY2020

PAGE 23

A JUST TRANSITION FOR
DETENTION COMMUNITIES
As the Biden administration
takes shape, it should continue
to decrease the population in
detention by implementing
a series of policies to release
people from detention during an
ongoing pandemic and steadily
shrink the detention system. The
Biden administration can use its
executive authority in pursuit of
these policy goals, though the
administration should also pursue
long-term legislative fixes to the
system to phase out the use of
immigration detention completely.
Detention Watch Network has
previously detailed how the Biden
administration can reduce the
detained population through
a series of policy choices. These
include immediately ending family
detention; fulfilling its promise
to end for-profit incarceration
by extending its executive order
phasing out private prisons
to ICE private contracts and
IGSAs with state and local
governments; reducing the use
of expedited removal (which

triggers mandatory detention) by
rescinding the Trump executive
order expanding its use, with a
long term goal of ending the use
of expedited removal altogether;
fully ending the Migrant
Protection Protocols, Title 42, and
other fast-track removal policies;
and by decriminalizing the act
of migration.53
Furthermore, the administration
can use its authority to release
people from detention in the
interest of public health and halt
all transfers within the detention
system and from the criminal
legal system to stop the spread
of COVID-19. Best practices
call for releases that do not
involve ankle monitors or other
forms of electronic surveillance.
The Biden administration can
shrink the pipeline to detention
and deportation by rejecting
a categorical approach to
enforcement and ending the
287g program, the Criminal Alien
Program, and Secure Communities.

53 See previous Detention Watch Network policy recommendations for the Biden administration
collected at this website.

PAGE 24

Photo Credit: Alonso Yáñez, La Opinión

Using cost savings from
reduced spending on
detention by following the
above recommendations, the
administration can and should
address the concerns raised by
advocates and elected officials
for investments in alternative
economic development initiatives
in their communities.
One such community is Frio
County, Texas, about an hour
south of San Antonio, which
is home to two ICE detention
centers. The South Texas ICE

Processing Center in the town
of Pearsall is operated by GEO
and has capacity to detain
more than 1,900 adult men and
women on any given day.54 In
the summer of 2020, ICE signed
a controversial 10-year contract
with GEO to operate the Pearsall
facility, in a move criticized as
an attempt to lock in Trump era
detention policies far beyond his
administration.55 On the other
side of Frio County, CoreCivic’s
South Texas Family Residential
Facility in Dilley, TX has capacity

54 https://www.geogroup.com/FacilityDetail/FacilityID/44
55 Detention Watch Network. Two notorious Texas detention centers receive new 10-year ICE contracts
with private prison corporations. August 10, 2020.

PAGE 25

for 2,400 children and adults
detained as families by ICE.56
Frio County Commissioner Jose
Asuncion, who represents the
part of the county that includes
the South Texas Family Residential
Facility, has long been a critic of
the role for-profit prison industries
have played in his community.
In May 2020, Asuncion, along
with other local officials, raised
the alarm after the vast majority
of local COVID-19 cases could be
traced back to ICE’s negligence
at the South Texas ICE Processing
Center in Pearsall.57
Asuncion says that the private
prison companies operating
the ICE detention centers are
a “dangerous presence” in his
and other communities, taking
advantage of communities
without providing promised
benefits. They have convinced
localities to expand utilities and
many of those communities have
become dependent on the tax
base, utility payments, and jobs
centered around the detention
centers. Asuncion says that
conversations about transitioning
away from detention centers

should include efforts to help
communities pay their bills and
technical assistance with planning
for post-detention economic
development opportunities.58

“

Frio County
Commissioner
Jose Asuncion says
that the private
prison companies
operating the ICE
detention centers
are a “dangerous
presence” in his and
other communities,
taking advantage of
communities without
providing promised
benefits.

”

56 https://www.ice.gov/factsheets/south-texas-family-residential-center
57 Perla Trevizo. “Covid-19 Cases At A Texas Immigration Detention Center Soared. Now, Town Leaders
Want Answers.” The Texas Tribune and ProPublica. May 11, 2020.
58 Phone conversation with Commissioner Jose Asuncion. July 24, 2020.

PAGE 26

To address this kind of need,
the Biden administration and
Congress should develop a Just
Transition Economic Development
Fund to aid communities
transitioning away from
immigration detention economies.
Congress and the administration
should create a fund housed
outside of the Department of
Homeland Security to provide
multi-year grants to communities
where detention centers are closed.
According to the Climate Justice
Alliance, “Just Transition” is a
term coined by labor unions and
environmental justice activists
who “saw the need to phase out
the industries that were harming
workers, community health and
the planet; and at the same time
provide just pathways for workers
to transition to other jobs.”59
With detention economies,
there is a similar need to divest
from harmful immigration
detention centers and prisons
while providing a pathway for
sustainable economic development
in these communities.

guided by an advisory committee
that includes formerly detained
people, economic development
advisors, advocates and elected
and community leaders from
communities transitioning away
from detention economies.
Efforts to incentivize
decarceration rather than more
incarceration are becoming
increasingly popular. As part
of the proposed BREATHE Act,
the Movement for Black Lives
has called for a competitive
federal grant to incentivize
localities reducing their jail
populations and their spending
on police. The proposal also
calls for federal investment in
non-punitive, community driven
solutions — with both planning
and implementation phases — to
the issues that lead to criminal
legal system involvement. The
Free Them All grant program, a
subsection of the BREATHE Act,
proposes a 50 percent funding
match to what local governments
would save from decarceration
efforts.60

The Just Transition Economic
Development Fund should be
59 Climate Justice Alliance. Just Transition: A Framework for Change. Accessed March 25, 2021.
60 Movement for Black Lives. BREATHE Act, Section 2 Investing In New Approaches To Community Safety
Utilizing Funding Incentives. Accessed December 21, 2020.

PAGE 27

CONCLUSION
The U.S. immigration detention
system, the largest of its kind in
the world, has long been a cause
for concern. Detained people
and their loved ones, their legal
representatives, and advocates
routinely report egregious
conditions in the jails and prisons
used to detain immigrants. Due
to the onerous nature of the U.S.
immigration system and courts,
immigrants spend months or
even years in detention centers
meant for short term stays. The
profit motive — by both private
prison corporations and local
governments — is built deeply
into the immigration detention
system. All but five detention
centers are subcontracted out
to local governments or private
corporations, that prioritize profit
above care.
As states have reduced the
number of people incarcerated
in jails, prisons, and juvenile
detention centers, the federal
immigration detention system
has only increased. Many local
governments have become
dependent on federal contracts
for immigration detention to

support their local budgets and
have resisted detention closure.
Private prison corporations have
brought in billions from their
ICE contracts and immigration
detention has become a
centerpiece of their financial
model. Immigration detention
reached its height in FY 2019
when the U.S. government
detained a record number of
people — more than 50,000 on
an average day — and spent
$3.2 billion, another record, on
detention alone.
The Biden administration has a
unique opportunity to break this
cycle and work towards an end
to the unnecessary system of
detention altogether. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, the number
of people detained by ICE fell to
lows not seen in over 20 years.
Just over 14,000 people were
detained on April 1st. The Biden
administration can and must
continue to reduce the detained
population and implement the
recommendations put forward
in this report in order to prevent
the system from growing once the
pandemic subsides. Immigrants

PAGE 28

Photo Credit: Fernando Lopez

should be able to navigate their
cases at home and in community,
not behind bars in immigration
detention. The goal should be the
elimination of incarceration in the
immigration system. Reducing
the detention population would
allow the Biden administration
and Congress to also dramatically
reduce ICE’s bloated detention
budget, money that can then be
reinvested in communities.

year Just Transition Economic
Development Fund would provide
incentives for communities to
move away from economies
dependent on the suffering of
people in immigration detention
and towards economies that
create opportunities for whole
communities to thrive.

As part of the process of phasing
out the use of immigration
detention entirely, the
implementation of a multi-

PAGE 29