Our friends at the National Immigration Forum have put together a report on the “Math of Immigration Detention.” The full report can be viewed here, but here are some of the highlights:
- ICE’s use of discretion has been limited so far, and resources are still used to detain and deport aspiring citizens who pose no risk. Wise use of prosecutorial discretion is a huge opportunity to reshape our vast immigration detention system, yet the opportunity is being squandered.
- For the Fiscal Year that begins October 1, 2012 (Fiscal Year 2013), DHS and the White House requested $1.959 billion for DHS Custody Operations. This funding level would amount to $5.4 million per day spent on immigration detention.
- The current cost to detain an immigrant is approximately $164 per day at a capacity of 32,800 daily detention beds. Congress would spend even more.
- Many of these detention dollars flow to enormous private prison corporations that stand to reap significant profits when more and more immigrants are detained.
- In 2011, CCA and GEO, the two largest private detention corporations, reported annual revenues of $1.73 billion and $1.6 billion respectively
- Less wasteful and equally effective alternatives to detention exist. They range in cost from as low as 30 cents to $14 a day. If only individuals convicted of serious crimes were detained and less expensive alternative methods were used to monitor the rest of the currently detained population, taxpayers could save more than $1.6 billion per year—over an 80% reduction in annual costs.
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