Privatizing misery, deporting and imprisoning migrants for profit

The hidden agenda of the border hype:

Security guards and prisons in the dollars-for-migrants industry


By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

SASABE, Ariz. -- Another industry has been privatized in the United States by the Bush administration. This time it is the transportation of migrants for deportation.
The Wackenhut Corporation, whose buses wait along the border to be filled with migrants for deportation, is actually a subsidiary of the Danish security corporation G4S (Group4/Securicor.)
G4S, with headquarters in Crawley, West Sussex, England, is listed on the stock exchanges in London and Denmark.
Some border residents are concerned that a foreign-owned corporation, and not a U.S.-owned corporation, is handling security and deportations of migrants at the border. Many are concerned that a corporation is profiteering from migrant deportations. Wackenhut/G4S took over these duties from the U.S. Border Patrol.
The executive director of the watchdog group Private Corrections Institute, Ken Kopczynski, wrote to the Censored Blog about the owners of Wackenhut.
"Great piece on the Minutemen and immigration, but Wackenhut is not connected to GEO Group. Group 4 bought out Wackenhut Corporation a number of years ago and sold off the corrections unit to George Zoley and friends. Part of the agreement was that they could no longer use the name Wackenhut, which currently is a subsidiary of Group 4/Securicor. Hope this helps and keep at ‘em," wrote Ken Kopczynski, executive director of Private Corrections Institute.
Imprisoning migrants for profit
George Zoley is CEO of GEO Group, Inc., which operates privatized prisons across the nation, including the notorious prisons in Florence, Arizona.
Building prisons for immigrants has been profitable for the GEO Group. In the year 2007 alone, GEO Group won contracts for a prison in Eagle Pass, Texas; an immigration detention facility in Jena, La. and a detention facility for U.S. Marshals service in Laredo, Tex.
After the Jena, La., immigration detention facility reaches full occupancy with 1,160 inmates in 2008, GEO expects $23.5 million annually in revenues.
GEO, whose major shareholder is Zoley, donated $100,000 to George Bush's reelection campaign in 2004. (GEO was previously called "Wackenhut Corrections," but no longer uses the Wackenhut name.)
Texas has some of the most notorious migrant prisons
GEO Group, with headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., received a 10-year contract in January, for the detention of 2,407 "criminal aliens" at the Reeves County Detention Complex in Texas.
GEO took over the county's contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. GEO said it believes that the facility in Reeves County, with the county seat in Pecos, is the largest privately-operated prison in the world.
In Taylor, Texas, near Austin, another for-profit company, Corrections Corporation of America, imprisons migrant and refugee infants and children at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center. Recently, a prison guard exposed maggots in the food there. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Jorge Bustamante, was denied a request to tour Hutto in May, 2007. (Scroll to the end for more links on Texas prisons.)
Halliburton and migrant prisons
Halliburton's Kellogg Brown and Root received a contract for $385 million to build immigration detention centers "in the even to an emergency influx of immigrants." After obtaining the contract from Homeland Security in Jan., 2006, Halliburton separated from KBR. Then, Halliburton moved its headquarters to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in 2007.
Guarding and transporting migrants for profit
Meanwhile, the Danish-owned, G4S/Wackenhut Corporation describes its contract with Border Patrol.
On Aug. 30, 2006, Border Patrol and the Wackenhut Corporation signed a one-year agreement, with four one-year performance periods, to provide “Guard and Transportation” services to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.
Wackenhut said the scope of the contract covers the entire southwest United States/Mexican border to include Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
"The value of the agreement is approximately $50 million dollars per year, with a total contract value of $250 million dollars over the five-year period," Wackenhut states.
"Transport service will initially involve over 100 secure, motor coach buses to include state of the art confinement systems, on-board digital/video surveillance, GPS tracking and over 270 armed security personnel from Wackenhut’s Custom Protection Division."
With project headquarters in Tucson, Wackenhut said there would be three additional support centers in the southwest border operations.
During a recent protest of labor struggles in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported, "Wackenhut is a subsidiary of the global security contractor G4S, which is under fire from international human rights groups and trade unions for alleged racist practices against black employees in South Africa, Malawi and Mozambique."
Wackenhut also imprisons Australian aboriginals and refugees in Australia.
The Wackenhut Corporation provides nuclear security and energy consulting services, according to its website.
Controversial security contract for Danish-owned Wackenhut
After taking over migrant deportation services from the Border Patrol, G4S/Wackenhut, announced on May 14, 2007, another controversial security contract, one at the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility.
Wackenhut, from its U.S. headquarters in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., announced that the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration selected Wackenhut for award of the Oak Ridge Complex Protective Services Contracts.
These contracts provide for the security support services for the 33,725 acre Oak Ridge Reservation including the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the East Tennessee Technology Park, the Federal Office Building Complex and the Y-12 National Security Complex, Wackenhut said.
In August, peace activists were arrested at the atomic energy site, Y-12, a high-level security complex with a long history of secrecy, in Oak Ridge, Tenn:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/aug/05/annual-y-12-protest-draws-200/

More information:
Background: "CorpWatch: Wackenhut's Free Market in Human Misery" (1999)
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=868 Bush donors get kickbacks with contracts and favoritism

Bush Pioneers 2004
The list of those donating $100,000 to the Bush campaign in 2004, includes GEO Group (which won multiple contracts to imprison migrants in Texas and Louisiana in 2007.)
The list includes lobbyist Jack Abramoff, officials from Wal-Mart, Verizon and the Christian Coalition, along with Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, other senators and a member of the Federal Reserve: http://www.nndb.com/group/715/000117364/

G4S/Wackenthut:
http://www.g4s.com/


Readers respond:

Raymondville, Texas, migrant tent city prison:

Your list of infamous immigrant prisons being run for profit probably isn't complete without the "Tent City" in Raymondville, Texas. It's a series of temporary structures that was assembled in 90 days.You can see the whole range of prisons for profit in Texas at http://texasprisonbidness.org/about-private-prisons/texas-private-prisons-map
Some are contract prisons for ICE, others are holding state prisoners from other states, some are holding youth. There's a lot of populations that can be confined for profit. Keep writing about it!
Kathleen

Wackenhut sites exposing abuses:
Enjoyed your post on Wackenhut and border patrols interesting. Have you seen http://www.eyeonwackenhut.org/ and http://www.focusong4s.org/?
Those two sites have info on Wackenhut's many problems and rights abuses in the U.S. and abroad(Texas Prison Bid'ness)e:
http://www.privateci.org/


Please send comments on this article to: brendanorrell@gmail.com

Return to Censored Blog homepage:
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BAM! POW! ZOOM! TO THE MOON, ALLISON BLAKE!

While giving a tour of 'Eureka' to his grandfather (who had been cryogenically frozen for the last fifty years in the episode "Family Reunion"), Douglas Fargo mentioned that men had been on the Moon since 1962, but only "officially" since 1969.

This is a terrific trivia tidbit for Toobworld! Having a human presence on the Moon since 1962 means we've got a splainin for those episodes of early sci-fi anthology TV shows, like 'Science Fiction Theater', 'Tales of Tomorrow' and 'One Step Beyond', in which men are on the Moon and yet the fashions of the times are locked in the past.

It also locks in something of a connection to 'Get Smart', which once had a throwaway opening gag in which the CONTROL agents met on the lunar surface to discuss their latest cases.

And that gives Mankind a jump in getting a lunar colony established on the Moon, one that would be long in place by the time of the nuclear waste dump explosion in 1999. (For those who don't know, Toobworld Central long ago neutralized the Zonk of 'Space: 1999' by splainin everything seen on the TV show after the explosion as being fever dreams experienced by Commander Koenig. He survived, but was left in a coma.)

The very existence (lots of "ex" words lately....) of 'Eureka' quickly became an important component in the makeup of Toobworld; this latest example (hmmm) proves it.

BCnU!
Toby OB

Life and death on the border, 'No significant impact'

The biggest hoax of all, the $31.5 million, seven-mile, border fence at Sasabe and its pitiful environmental assessment


By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

ARIVACA and SASABE, Arizona – Of all the whitewashed and pitiful U.S.-produced environmental assessments, the slim pile of papers for the Sasabe border fence is the worst.

In Sasabe, where border fence construction is slated to begin on Monday, residents did not even know the pitiful document existed.

The so-called environmental assessment was sent by FedEx to the Caviglia-Arivaca Library, after its release on July 27.

There was no request for public comment, simply a bundle of papers placed in the library. At the end of the document, where public comments usually appear, there are three letters from the U.S. Army praising the project.

The reason for the document’s existence is explained. The Sasabe fence is being built “to comply with the Congressional Fence Act of 2006” which requires that 700 miles of fence be built.

In other words, it does not matter that this seven-mile border fence, along the 2,000-mile border, is futile and impractical. Congress said to do it, so it will be built for $31.5 million, like a bridge to nowhere.

The failure to request public comments has not gone unnoticed. Arizona residents living along the border had one common sentiment about the U.S. plans to build the border fence: “They could care less what we think about it.”

It was only by accident that I stumbled across the assessment on Thursday, while looking back over another pitiful environmental assessment, the one for the border spy towers.

The environmental assessment for the “Pedestrian Fence” near Sasabe, Arizona is one more installment in what could become a trillion dollar disaster, the proposed US/Mexico border fence.

It only takes one look at the rugged mountains west of Sasabe to know that there will be no metal border wall built across those mountains. Yes, migrants and jaguars will make it over those mountain paths, but there is not going to be any wall construction.

The Sasabe border fence would only extend 4.5 miles to the east and 2.5 miles to the west of Sasabe Port of Entry. That is it, seven miles of border wall to nowhere, a border wall that will be easily avoided by migrants.

Since it is not possible to build a border wall over those mountains, the lead contractor Boeing has placed nine spy towers along the border. The only problem is, those are not working because of software problems.



Yes, the top camera was orbiting, and the red lights were flashing on the spy tower a few miles north of Sasabe, at the junction of Arivaca Road, on Thursday, but the towers are experiencing technical failure. There was another spy tower perched northwest of Sasabe, on the road to the Osa Guest Ranch.

Wi-Fi was used for the towers in these rugged mountains, canyons and desert. That is the same Wi-Fi that your local coffee shop uses. Anyone who uses Wi-Fi where there's interference, either interference from physical barriers or hackers, will enjoy this joke.

To make matters worse, the spy tower located in Arivaca is pointed at the homes of Arivaca community members. With its spy range of nine miles, there is no view of the border from that spy tower because of the mountains. Arivaca residents oppose the spy tower based on the invasion of privacy and are planning a lawsuit.

On the daylong drive from Tucson to Arivaca, Sasabe and Three Points, Arizona, on Thursday, there were about 30 Border Patrol units wandering around. The Border Patrol agents were watching the rain clouds form, talking on their cell phones and munching snacks at convenience stores.

A couple of Wackenhut buses, waiting to be loaded with migrants, sat empty along the highway. Their drivers were slouched over the steering wheels, no doubt experiencing one of the most boring days of their lives.

There was not a migrant in sight.

Things picked up a little over at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, not that there were any people around, just more Border Patrol agents talking on their cell phones and wandering around.



There were however, some fine hummingbirds at the feeders, and lots of good information on the Pronghorns along the border. It turns out that the Sonoran Pronghorn migrate between Mexico and the United States, crossing the border in the desert between Ajo and Yuma. Pronghorns, the fastest mammal in North America, do not jump over fences like deer, they try to go through or under fences, which can be devastating to the Pronghorns.

Jaguar, too, at times migrate from Mexico to the United States through these mountains.

Which brings us back to the pitiful environmental assessment for the Sasabe border fence, that costly and futile expression of Congress in response to border hysteria elsewhere and media hype.

Perhaps this assessment was sent by FedEx to the Caviglia-Arivaca Library, because those who produced it were too embarrassed to deliver it themselves.

The pitiful environmental assessment lists the threatened and endangered species.

The conclusion: “No Significant Impact.”

Like its predecessors, the environmental assessments for the unmanned aerial vehicles and spy towers, the assessment is a joke.

The document itself, surely will have “No Significant Impact,” except to fuel the mistrust and anger of Arizona residents along the border.

In fact, unless you are an investigative reporter, or psychic, you probably cannot even find a copy of it.

However, just for the record, here is the list of the endangered and threatened species listed in the Sasabe border fence environmental assessment.

The Bald eagle and Chiricahua leopard frog are on the list of threatened species.

On the endangered list are the California Brown pelican; Desert pupfish; Gila chub; Gila topminnow; Huachuca water umbel; Jaguar; Kearney blue star; Lesser long-nosed bat; Masked Bobwhite; Mexican spotted owl; Nichol Turk’s head cactus; Ocelot (spotted cat); Pima pineapple cactus; Sonoran pronghorn and Southwestern willow flycatcher.

Listed as “candidate” species are the Acuna cactus; Sonoyta mud turtle; Yellow-billed cuckoo; Gooddings onion and San Xavier talussnail (land snail.)

The jaguar is “cinnamon-buff” with black spots and the largest cat native in the Southwest.

The endangered Lesser long-nosed bat is a subject that biologists have been reluctant to discuss. The border fence assessment describes them as “easily disturbed.” Bats are pollinators of the desert plants, including agave and cacti. They day roost in caves and abandoned tunnels, making their homes in Arizona between April and September. These bats fly south of the border for the rest of the year, according to the fence assessment.

The question remains whether the bats’ hunting ability will be affected by the spy towers’ high-tech equipment.

The fence assessment states there is critical habitat here for the Desert pupfish; Gila Chub; Huachuca water umbel; Mexican spotted owl and Southwestern willow flycatcher.

Mitch Ellis, Buenos Aires National Wildlife manager, said the lack of public notice and comment period does not satisfy the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. Ellis said he will not give permission to proceed with the fence on BANW land until the requirements are met.

Tohono O'odham Chairman Ned Norris, Jr., said the Tohono O'odham Nation was not allowed to comment on the impact to cultural sites.

Already this summer, the United States' construction of the border vehicle barrier has resulted in Hohokam, O'odham ancestors, being dug up on tribal land and removed from their burial sites.

As for the pitiful environmental assessment for the Sasabe border fence, it was prepared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Fort Worth and the Gulf South Research Corporation.

Biologists, ecologists and archaeologists participating, don’t worry. We’re not including your names.


Photos: Sasabe Port of Entry, Mexico/US border. Rugged mountains along border shown to the west, land is lush from monsoon rains. Photo 2: U.S. spy tower northwest of Sasabe, on the road to Osa Guest Ranch. Photo 3: Monsoon rain clouds form in the distance to the west, over Tohono O'odham tribal land. Photos Brenda Norrell Pronghorn photo/US Fish and Wildlife