National Security and Commodification of Non-Citizens for Private Profit

April 22, 2016

Guest blogger: Mariel Emanuel, first-year law student, University of San Francisco

In response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the U.S. government shifted to screening and enforcing immigration laws through the lens of national security. In 2002, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created in order to ensure “the safety and security of the United States from terrorist attacks and other disasters.” With a central focus on national security and terrorism, twenty-two different federal departments including the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) and U.S. Customs Service were subsumed into the new Department of Homeland Security that today includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration services (USCIS), and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CPB).

At first glance this re-categorization may seem like a non-issue. However, by blurring the lines between terrorism and immigration the government has been able to take unreasonably drastic measures against non-citizens in the name of national security. This is a country founded on immigrants. Our economy depends on the “approximately 48% of farmworkers [who] lack authorization.” Agriculture and agriculture related industries alone “contributed $835 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014.” Immigrant labor has been essential to this economic prosperity. So, why would the government seek to cast all immigrants and non-citizens in such a threatening and dehumanizing light?

The reallocation of immigration affairs into the DHS was not the only change the government made in response to 9/11. Since 9/11 the federal funding for immigration enforcement experienced an exorbitant increase. It has been estimated that the construction of the DHS cost the U.S. $589 billion dollars between 2001-2011. As this funding increased, so did the detentions and deportations of non-citizens.

There are two private corporations in charge of the immigration detention centers in the United States—Corrections Corporation of American (CCA) and the GEO Group. Between 2006-2015 “CCA spent more than $8.7 million and the Geo Group spent $1.3 million to lobby Congress solely on Homeland Security”. Since 2005, both corporations have nearly doubled their revenues.

Detaining non-citizens has turned into a lucrative market. Congress has even set a statutory quota that mandates ICE to have at least 34,000 beds filled in the detention facilities on a daily basis. No other law enforcement agency is subject to a statutory quota on the number of individuals to hold in detention. There is no material reason for enforcing a strict bed quota. This is a prime example of the corruption that plagues Congress. Human quotas have been set in order for corporations to meet their monetary quotas. Congress is implementing arbitrary statutes that do not benefit the citizens, but instead put millions of dollars into the hands of the corporations who proceed to put millions of dollars back into Congress through campaign contributions.

The symbiotic relationship between DHS’s immigration enforcement policies and corporate profit underscores the general mode of operation in the United States. Financial growth, commercial revenue, and personal greed have become the underlying motives for many of the decisions our government makes. Some of these choices may indeed stimulate growth for the US economy; however, the hefty price we pay as a society cannot be put into monetary terms.

Innocent humans are being rounded up and detained for private profit in the name of national security. All the while the reality of this crisis is being obscured from mainstream knowledge. By cloaking these grave human rights abuses under the veil of counter-terrorism and security, the government is able to avoid scrutiny and discretely shape public sentiment toward immigration policies. Of course everything in the name of counter-terrorism is deemed as worthy and beneficial. However, this false conflation of immigration issues and terrorism is turning non-citizens into a commodity and allowing corporate desires to more easily shape federal immigration policies.