The Beginning of the End of Private Detention for Immigrants?

By the end of November, immigrants may no longer be detained in the Department of Homeland Security’s much-criticized private detention facilities. In a statement released Monday, Secretary Jeh Johnson asked the Homeland Security Advisory Council, a multidisciplinary committee that weighs in on DHS policy, to examine the “current policy and practices concerning the use of private immigration detention and evaluate whether this practice should be eliminated.”

Following the Department of Justice’s decision to phase out its private prisons, immigration activists have been calling on DHS to do the same. Facilities under both agencies face the same issues: lack of transparency and inhumane conditions. But DHS detention is not supposed to be punitive, which makes the conditions at such facilities especially problematic. The family detention center in Dilley, Texas, (which activist call “baby jail”) was built as a result of a lucrative deal between the government and the now-infamous Corrections Corporation of America. As I’ve previously written, federal courts have repeatedly deemed this facility unfit to house young children.