healing Trauma #1

So throughout this course, we've been talking about various issues

and policies regarding migration from the caribbean, from Central America

and from Mexico, we've been looking at some of the

causes of those migration, some of the policies that have

put into place.

But we've also been talking about the trauma that is

uh huh increasing as some of the poverty and some

of the living conditions begin to decline in latin America.

Okay, so, um we note that a lot of the

people coming over have a very traumatic experience with exploitation,

robbery violations that are just commonplace within the migration um

process, particularly for women and Children.

So today we're going to look at um what is

happening right now.

What are some of the things that we need to

look out for and what are some of the possibilities

that we have to begin to change migration policy in

the United States.

Mhm. So we have talked about the problem of immigration

detention centers, we know that these are um for profit

centers where the government sort of stops running um the

detention centers and begins to hire these private companies, um

and they pay them to detain the the the migrant

population. Okay, so this started during the Clinton administration.

And so there were a few different policies that really

began to sort of detained migrants, particularly the uh illegal

immigration responsibility act, 1996 and um A few others that

began to uh detain migrants for various reasons.

So you can see in 2001 when September 11 attacks

happened, you get an increase in the detention Of migrants.

Um, and then 2003, the Department of Homeland Security has

created along with the immigration and customs enforcement or ice.

Um and you can see that steadily uh increasing during

the Bush administration and throughout the Obama administration, it slightly

rises towards the end of the Obama administration.

However, they disavowed this policy.

They started to realize that there was a lot of

exploitation going on.

And so that transition um between the election of trump

where he was running against Hillary clinton really, these for

profit companies really began to understand that um if Hillary

Clinton was elected, she would have continued uh, the policies

of Obama and that they would lose profit.

And so they back trump, definitely pouring money into his

campaign and it paid off for them when he won.

He vastly increased the number of beds and these um

really increased the contracts that they made with them.

Um, and so You can see by about 2019 there

were 50,000 people in detention, okay across the United States

and various facilities and so of course people are coming

and going.

So this means that this is a lot of numbers

to maintain that level, right.

Um, yeah, When the COVID-19 outbreak happened, you begin to

see a sharp decline simply because so many people were

getting sick.

Um, and so this was a health policy issue.

And so that declined all the way in through the

election of joe biden, where joe biden definitely did not

continue the policy um as it was before, but we're

still sort of in a flux state.

We don't know exactly what's going to happen.

We're not sure of what the next steps are.

But definitely we see um, we see a possibility for

change during the Obama administration, but we really do need

to look at what these facilities are like so that

we can be prepared to begin to push back against

these type of inhumane conditions that exist within uh, these

facilities. So what is family detention?

You know, it's really the practice of holding immigrants together.

Um Families together in detention in immigration detention.

So families are separated mothers with their Children.

Fathers are detained in two separate facilities.

Okay. The two biggest corporations that run this are the

Geo group and Core Civic.

And so you can see here from 2000 and 8

to 2016.

Core Civic earned $689 million from contracts with the federal

government with ice.

Right? And Geo group earned 1.18 billion.

This represented only a third of their profit, but it

was their biggest contract.

The house have contracts with state governments.

Um and um local governments.

Okay, so, okay, just a little bit about this.

Um, we know that the federal government, what it did

was to realize that or to be convinced by these

companies that it was cheaper to use these pro for

profit um companies to detain migrants than to do it

themselves. Okay.

So basically instead of the government running these programs at

higher costs, they give it to These for profit companies.

Okay. You can see here the for profit companies that

costs about $150 a day to detain a migrant.

Okay. Um this seems like a lot for sure.

But definitely if you think about it.

Um where are they making the profit?

Right? They have to think about the labor that there

facing right?

The food costs the facility upkeep right?

You have to buy electricity and water and all that

cleaning. Um And also medical care.

Okay. Food and so forth.

So there are other alternatives to this that we'll talk

about. But that's taxpayers money that goes into paying for

this. Okay.

So how do they how do they make it lower

though? You think about it right.

How is it cheaper for the for profit company to

do with them?

For the government?

Well, they cut costs by cutting down on the quality

of food.

They cut costs by cutting down on the quality of

medical care for people who are in detention.

So people are getting sick.

People are going hungry, right?

Um They cut costs by um cutting down on the

quality of living quarters, right?

People are all just stuffed in a room giving these

plastic blankets and put on a mat, right?

And they also cut costs, um, by hiring people who

are less qualified.

And this is really where you get a lot of

the abuse, right?

So it's just a lose a losing situation okay.

Within these for profit facilities.

Because the bottom line is is that they need to

make profit for their shareholders.

And the only way to do that is to cut

costs, which has huge consequences for the people who are

being detained.

Look, so it kind of makes you think is why

did that rise so sharply, why do the numbers rise

so sharply during the trump administration?

Were favors being paid back?

Right? Um, trump had a zero tolerance policy.

So he was detaining people at the border, putting them

into um, detention facilities.

And also he was having people arrested in the interior

of the country, People who are already here living in

communities. And so a big percentage of those people were

people who were arrested for minor infractions, traffic violations, up

to the possession of marijuana and so forth.

Um, so a lot of people are just being sort

of detained obviously, um, they're being profiled.

And if they didn't have the proper documentation, they were

being pushed into detention, which meant bigger profits for these

companies. Right?

So some people have criticized this as sort of a

system that, That the, it accomplishes two things.

It makes makes these companies filthy rich and increasingly richer.

Um, and at the same time, it shows a policy

of getting tough on undocumented immigrants.

So luckily you have a large movement, uh, that is

pushing for divestment in these corporations.

So you're starting to see larger companies who are beginning

to pull their um their support for these companies, including

some banks.

Right? So the divestment movement is a really powerful one,

right? So that should mean that private corporations should not

be supporting these types of facilities and there's been consequences,

right? So, um, as that knowledge grows in our communities,

as people begin to get angry about supporting these for

profit facilities, the people let them know if you are

a business who is supporting in some way, these for

profit communities, there may be a price to pay.

This has a similar sort of effect as a as

a boycott, right?

Um, in which you are sort of trying to put

shame on a corporation for inhumane policies, right?

Inhumane treatment of other human beings, um, perhaps the most

vulnerable human beings.

So, definitely, the biden administration um, is has heard, alright,

the call of the divestment movement and the inhumane treatment

that is happening within these facilities.

And so it doesn't want any part of it, right.

There are other ways of doing it.

There are other ways that are much cheaper just in

terms of trying to keep up the same sort of

immigration policies, but in a more humanitarian way.

So, what we've seen just in terms of the divestment

policy is that these groups, their stock prices have just

tanked. They've lost just hundreds of millions of dollars because

of just in the, uh, the short few months of

the biden administration, um, who are not renewing these contracts.

Right. Less people are being put into detention only the

most hardened criminals and so forth.

So, there's also a lot of lawsuits that are being

filed against these corporations that are part of this sort

of the immigration activism that we see happening.

And so, um, constant push back against this type of

treatment against these kind of, uh, inhumane, unjust corporations who

are taking advantage of people, um, really putting the spotlight

on them is important, right?

It's an important sort of way of trying to change

policies, um, in the United States and making politicians responsible

for their actions and for their support of these types

of entities.

Yeah. And it became particularly worrisome for the biden administration

when some of the most outrageous, um, examples of inhumane

treatment started coming up.

One of them is the voluntary work program.

So, congress since, for, for many decades now has allowed,

um, prisoners to be used as voluntary workers within the

prison system.

And so What that means is that they are able

to work and earned up to $1 or $2 a

day, very exploitative wages, of course.

Okay, so this is the same for these detention facilities

now, because it's, um it is supposed to be a

voluntary program.

All right.

So what the problem is is that um the workers

have alleged that they've been coerced into working in these.

Okay. And this obviously leads further to the profit of

these corporations.

So they are doing all kinds of work.

They are doing things like cleaning, washing dishes, even some

clerical work, um all kinds of maintenance work at the

facilities where the corporation just gets their labor for next

to nothing.

Now. The way that they are able to coerce people

into doing this is that by earning these.

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