LEMON DROP | Cruelty for Profit? Inside ICE Prisons

0:00 Nick Valencia is here, an award-winning independent journalist,

0:03 and he has a fascinating,

0:05 groundbreaking new report out where Nick describes the private detention system

0:10 as one where human beings become revenue uh turning lives into line items,

0:15 basically focusing on ICE detentions uh and immigration lockup facilities.

0:21 Take us through this.

0:22 Why did you do this, Nick?

0:22 And what did you uncover?

0:24 Well, people are the product.

0:25 You know, that's what we uncovered is this is all

0:27 a corporate America where we're not really citizens, it seems.

0:29 We're consumers.

0:30 And the moment we can't contribute to this country, we're tossed aside, right?

0:33 We end up losing our homes.

0:35 We're out in the streets.

0:35 And I'm guilty of this.

0:36 You don't even look people in the eye when they're out in the streets.

0:38 And you assume that when they're out there, it's their fault.

0:41 This is the first in a three-part series.

0:43 We're focusing on private prisons, the expansion there, where,

0:46 you know, it's so evident, Don, that people are the product.

0:49 We all see the shaky cell phone videos.

0:51 We don't know really what happens after the camera turns off, though.

0:55 And that's when the meter literally starts running.

0:57 And in this first of three-part series for Corruption, Inc.

0:59 The Media, I investigated private prisons,

1:02 and we learned $35,000 is the price tag per month,

1:07 per day, or per person, per bed.

1:09 And that's what these private prison companies like Geog Group and Core Civic,

1:12 that's what they're making uh in ICE detention.

1:15 They're getting rich.

1:17 Yeah.

1:17 Let's look at some of your report.

1:21 We've all seen the videos by now.

1:23 The shaky cell phone footage, the agents in plane clothes,

1:27 a person is grabbed, handcuffed, and put in the back of an unmarked vehicle.

1:31 And then the video ends.

1:32 But that's when the real story begins.

1:34 The moment that door slams shut, the meter starts running.

1:38 Not metaphorically, literally.

1:40 And that industry runs on human beings.

1:43 Every day they stay locked up.

1:44 The meter keeps running.

1:45 And here's the part that should stop you cold.

1:48 Many of these people in custody, they haven't even been convicted of a crime.

1:52 Some haven't even been charged.

1:55 Look, Nick, that's amazing.

1:56 This is you're focusing on your focus there

1:59 was the detention of migrants and immigrants uh during,

2:02 you know, the this recent ICE invasion.

2:05 This goes this goes even before Trump.

2:09 Can you talk about the history of private prisons because

2:12 um Ava Deiver did it with her um her series.

2:16 I believe it was for Netflix.

2:18 um it may have been even at movie theaters,

2:20 but she did it for her series talking about,

2:22 you know, the amendment and the constitution.

2:24 Um and where private prisons come

2:26 from, but this is this was happening way before ICE.

2:29 Yeah.

2:29 This started back in the 1980s and has just really expanded.

2:32 And it expanded under President Obama.

2:34 President Obama was really uh sort of at the middle

2:37 of allowing these private prison companies to flourish.

2:40 But it's under President Trump that it's been all gas, no breaks.

2:43 And you saw the numbers there.

2:44 On average, we have about 40,000 immigrants in detention per year.

2:48 That's what it's historically been in this country.

2:51 And just take a guess, you know,

2:52 how many people do you think we have in custody right now?

2:55 It's about 60 70,000.

2:57 And those are conservative estimates.

2:59 President Trump wants to increase these beds to 120,000 beds.

3:04 And so you're seeing these news items and these headlines now,

3:07 places like Social Circle, Georgia,

3:09 places like California City that's operating unlawfully.

3:12 They're wanting to expand these warehouses and fill beds and facilities.

3:17 10,000 beds.

3:18 You see what's going on in these facilities too, Don.

3:21 You know, that was part of our investigation

3:22 as well is the human rights abuses inside.

3:25 Yeah.

3:25 Uh and by the way, I was right.

3:26 It is for Netflix and it was the she her um documentary

3:30 or film was called The 13th where it talks about you know for-profit prisons.

3:35 This is um this generates I believe

3:38 roughly according to your report 27,000 to 35

3:42 thou $35,000 per day for private firms

3:46 beyond the meter running once someone is detained.

3:49 Nick, how do these companies specifically incentivize longer stays

3:53 to maximize that per bed revenue really to maximize profits?

3:58 People are asking for voluntary deportation and they're not getting it.

4:01 Full stop.

4:01 We found that to be a theme just as much

4:03 as this pattern is of their expansion across the country

4:06 is that there are people that are asking to be

4:08 sent back and they're not being allowed to go home.

4:11 The other thing they do is that they transfer these pre-trial detainees,

4:15 a lot of them who haven't been charged.

4:16 They transfer from one facility to the next just to exhaust them physically.

4:20 It's it's just to[ __] with them mentally to be honest.

4:23 And they end up in a different bed in a different facility.

4:26 They don't know where they are.

4:27 We focused on the story of Carlos Devay and he

4:30 is somebody who's been in this country for 30 years.

4:32 He crossed in this country caught illegally crossed again.

4:36 That's a felony now which was expanded under President Clinton in the '90s.

4:40 Never a pathway to citizenship for him.

4:42 But he was expanding his life living a great life here for 30 years.

4:45 He gets caught in August.

4:47 Since August, he was transferred 16 different times.

4:50 Anyone who cares about our wasteful spending or fraud,

4:53 all of these things that President Trump has made sort of priorities,

4:56 they should be pissed at this, Don.

4:57 We're transferring human beings as line items as products,

5:01 and it's a small group of people,

5:03 these CEOs, and these company owners that are benefiting at the end of the day.

5:07 The person you just mentioned,

5:08 was that the detainee that says it was like Holocaust conditions?

5:11 Was that the same person?

5:12 That's right.

5:12 Yeah.

5:12 And they said, you know, look, yeah, that's the same person.

5:15 Let me because you described the conditions of these facilities uh with the wife

5:19 of one of the detainees saying

5:20 that it was Holocaust conditions without the gassing.

5:23 I mean, hey, wow.

5:25 What are these people experiencing?

5:27 I I wish we had this photo to show you.

5:29 I got it late last night.

5:30 Carlos looks like he lost about 100 pounds.

5:33 And so, when people call these places concentration camps,

5:36 I think at first, you know, our journalistic ethics kick in and we say,

5:39 "Wait a minute, that's that's dramatic.

5:41 That's, you know, polit political partisan.

5:44 I went into one of these facilities.

5:45 I was talking to your producers.

5:46 I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it.

5:48 I went into Camp East Montana.

5:49 I went in as an interpreter with an attorney.

5:52 I started hearing these stories and these testimonies from women inside.

5:55 They were telling me they were dealing with a a virus,

5:58 a fungal infection that had spread from their feet to their genitals.

6:01 I came out, talked about what I saw, got on the local news.

6:05 Turns out the El Paso County Health Department, they went in and investigated.

6:08 It was a measles outbreak that they were dealing with for four months.

6:13 on.

6:13 And so these, you know,

6:15 journalists should put in requests and try to get into these facilities.

6:18 ICE is never going to allow journalists like you and me inside.

6:20 I went in.

6:21 I never misidentified myself.

6:23 They never asked me who I was.

6:24 And you know, of course, I'm going to talk about what I saw inside.

6:27 And these are the things that are

6:28 happening right in our country beneath our noses.

6:31 While people celebrate President Trump for all of these things,

6:34 this is what is being done to detainees

6:37 that haven't even been charged under this administration.

6:41 Wow.

6:41 private prison companies right now are seeing revenue huge revenue surges.

6:46 a CEO group, uh, a GEO group, and then there's a core Civic, right?

6:52 They're each clearing about $2 billion in in revenue just last year.

6:56 Their stocks doubled.

6:57 Uh, we got a hold, I mean, I say got a hold of.

7:00 It wasn't very hard.

7:01 You just go on YouTube and putting thirdarter earnings calls.

7:03 A lot of these earnings calls just came out.

7:05 Encourage my, you know, people that are watching to go just put it in YouTube.

7:10 They are bragging out in the open about immigration detention

7:13 being an unprecedented growth sector with no end in sight.

7:16 And they have a president who has people that were at one

7:20 time part of his administration who used to lobby for these groups.

7:23 You talk about Geog Group.

7:24 You talk about Core Civic.

7:25 Let's talk about Pam Bondi being a lobbyist for them as recently as 2019.

7:29 Contracts that are going to Trisha McGlaughlin's husband, a DHS leader.

7:33 Her husband is getting a $200 million contract from DHS.

7:36 Why is this happening?

7:38 Alligator Alcatra, another one of these infamous uh facilities.

7:42 There are wardens that are also owners of companies

7:45 that are contracted to hire the prison guards.

7:47 So, they're the owners of the companies that are being

7:49 hired by the same facility that they're the leadership of.

7:52 Double dipping in taxpayer money.

7:54 All of this is happening right in the open.

7:55 And so, we decided to focus on it.

7:57 Uh do this 23 24-minute report um and really pull the you

8:02 know the the peels back the layers back on what's happening here.

8:05 Uh look, the corruption is happening right out uh in the open,

8:08 especially when it comes to um Donald Trump's wealth.

8:10 That's not me saying it, just me or Steve Ratner is saying that as well.

8:14 But also, you look at Pam Bondi.

8:16 Pam Bondi was his attorney, one of his personal attorneys.

8:18 Uh Todd Blanch was one of his personal attorneys.

8:20 And now they are appointees, uh you know,

8:24 in some of the highest offices and agencies in the country.

8:28 It is unbelievable.

8:30 And you're saying that she was a lobbyist.

8:31 It's really unbelievable.

8:32 Is there anything else you want to highlight from your report, Nick?

8:36 This issue breeds like everything else.

8:38 I think right now we're seeing a lull in immigration.

8:40 Earlier this year, the killing of Renee Good, Alex Pretty.

8:44 Immigration will again be a hot button issue

8:46 cuz we have the midterms right around the corner.

8:48 I I encourage anyone who's watching this to really go and watch our report.

8:52 It's not the main issue in the news right now, right?

8:54 We have other things like Iran, gas prices are $8.

8:58 The cruelty does not stop though and this is a priority for this administration.

9:02 We saw these videos kind of stop.

9:04 The detentions didn't.

9:05 The numbers reflect that they kept happening and we know

9:09 that this is getting to the administration because they sacked Christy Gnome.

9:12 Tom Hman is having a new PR approach.

9:15 I really want to um you know encourage people to not look away at this issue.

9:20 Immigration is not going away and and you could really see how cruel

9:23 this administration is and what they're doing to human beings in our country.

9:26 And Nick, where do we find your report?

9:28 You could find this across all social media,

9:30 The Real Corruption or The Real Corruption, Inc.

9:32 Go to YouTube, it's up there.

9:34 Or you can go to my social media, Nick Valencia News.

9:36 Go check it out.

9:38 Thanks, Nick.

9:39 Thanks for watching, everybody.

9:40 I appreciate you.

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