Many migrants are being held in horrific conditions and the last count I saw was up to 90,000.
https://www.salon.com/2026/01/28/private-prisons-are-cashing-in-on-trumps-ice-crackdown-theyre-just-getting-started/
Private prisons are cashing in on Trump’s ICE crackdown. They’re just getting started
Over 90 percent of detained immigrants languish in prisons that aren't actually run by the government
By NICHOLAS LIU
Reporter
PUBLISHED JANUARY 28, 2026 6:30AM (EST)
While Congress and state legislatures have passed reform to soften criminal sentencing laws, immigration detention remains, technically, a civil jurisdiction and outside their scope. Inside the facilities, the distinction is meaningless. In private prisons across the country, detained persons are herded through secure checkpoints, forced to wear color-coded uniforms, and locked in cells. CoreCivic facilities in Tennessee have come under repeated scrutiny for allegedly allowing violent threats and extortion to run rampant, with guards accused of being unable or unwilling to stop them. In 2023, after officials at GEO Group-operated Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center ignored a recommendation for his release, immigrant Ernesto Rocha-Cuadra was found dead after repeated allegations of physical abuse, medical neglect, and solitary confinement.
“The private prison industry and the federal government are feeding off each other.”
But these stories of abuse and neglect usually only see the light of day under extreme circumstances. The primary difference between public and private prisons, experts told Salon, is that private prisons operate in an even more impenetrable black box than public prisons. Kristie Puckett, a lobbyist who pushes against mass incarceration and the barriers for reentry into society, said that private prisons have “long found success hiding information” about their treatment of people detained in their facilities.
“Private prison companies can justify their non-transparency by saying it’s a proprietor to sensitive information and trade secrets, so it’s harder to get those public records,” she continued. “It’s much harder to enter those facilities to monitor conditions, and when abuse happens, when the company faces a lawsuit, they tend to settle those quietly rather than create any meaningful systemic change. If they decided to just terminate the contract in a certain jurisdiction and walk away from the problem, they can do that rather than fix the problem across the system.”
Pretty horrific stuff.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/migrants-face-dire-conditions-and-prolonged-waits-in-u-s-detention-centers
Migrants face dire conditions and prolonged waits in U.S. detention centers
Nation Feb 9, 2026 2:10 PM EDT
MIAMI (AP) — Felipe Hernandez Espinosa spent 45 days at " Alligator Alcatraz," an immigration holding center in Florida where detainees have reported worms in their food, toilets that don't flush and overflowing sewage. Mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.
Prolonged detention has become more common in President Donald Trump's second term, at least partly because a new policy generally prohibits immigration judges from releasing detainees while their deportation cases wind through backlogged courts. Many, like Hernandez, are prepared to give up any efforts to stay in the United States.
"I came to this country thinking they would help me, and I've been detained for six months without having committed a crime," he said in a phone interview from Fort Bliss. "It is been too long. I am desperate."
But for Hernandez, the Nicaraguan asylum-seeker, desperation led him to request to be returned to the country he had fled.
"I've experienced a lot of trauma. It's very difficult," Hernandez said from Fort Bliss. "I'm always thinking about when I'm going to get out."
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