OpenSecrets: Zero-tolerance policy is big money for contractors, non-profits

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/06/zero-tolerance-immigration-is-big-money-for-contractors-nonprofits/

President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy under the direction of Attorney General Jeff Sessions is big business for U.S. companies — from private prison and tech firms to defense and security contractors — as well as nonprofits.

Under bipartisan pressure, Trump signed an executive order Wednesday ending the administration’s controversial child-separation policy. But Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy, in which individuals who enter the U.S. illegally are prosecuted, will continue. All this comes as the country grapples with harrowing images of babies stripped from their mothers’ arms and children playing soccer on the grounds of abandoned Walmart stores along the Southwest border.

Trump defended his policy in a campaign speech Wednesday in Minnesota. That came a day after the raid of an Ohio meat plant in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 146 employees accused of being in the country illegally. It was the largest workforce raid in recent history, according to the agency.

ICE, which enforces the administration’s immigration policy, has allocated billions in federal contracts to private companies for software, consulting and manpower. Overall, the federal government has spent $4 billion since October 2016 — the start of 2017 fiscal year — on contracts and grants to counter illegal immigration. That includes contracts awarded to private companies as well as grants to nonprofits awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which handles child detentions.

OpenSecrets analyzed the money going to these often high-profile, publicly traded companies as well as their political spending and lobbying, along with the nonprofits commissioned to care for minors.

SNIP