call on Congress to cut funding to incarcerate immigrants in private prisions

Proposals for Comprehensive Immigration Reform in Congress now call for increased enforcement by the Border Patrol and may expand programs like Operation Streamline.

Operation Streamline is part of a broader trend of criminalizing immigration for acts that were not usually prosecuted as crimes a few years ago, such as unauthorized entry into the United States (a misdemeanor) or re-entering the country after being deported (a felony with an average prison sentence of 360 days, usually in a prison run by either the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) or the Geo Group) (GEO).

Lobbyists for the private prison industry have swamped key Senators and Congressmen, including the Senate Budget Committee, with contributions in an effort to motivate them to increase funding for immigrant detention and incarceration in private prisons at a cost to taxpayers of over $2 billion per year.

We are calling on the Senate Budget Committee Members to disavow connections with private prisons by voti