The owners of the main private prisons that operate in the United States are making juicy contributions to the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump, who has drastically increased the number of undocumented persons incarcerated in those jails.
In fact, handing over a good part of the correctional facilities to private capital is a practice that began about four decades ago and had its peak in the administration of former President Barack Obama.
Actually, the current Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden was an enthusiastic promoter of these profitable businesses during his term as vice president of the United States.
However, pressured by the progressive sector of his political party and led by Senator Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden has promised to put an end to these practices if he becomes president. This is something that is easier said than done, because Trump managed to sign contracts with the firms CoreCivic and GEO Group to provide these services for the next ten years and, as is known, businesses in the United States are more sacred than the Bible.
According to press reports, the CEO of CoreCivic, Damon Hininger, personally donated more than $26,000 to the Republican campaign and got his close associates to contribute another $228,000.
The founder and director of GEO Group, George Zoley, gave more than half a million dollars to the campaign of the Republican party and only 10,000 to the Democrats, but the Center for Responsive Policies reveals that other companies related to that consortium also contributed with more than 1.7 million dollars.
Although both companies denied any political link in these donations, it is clear what their preferences are. Ever since Trump moved into the White House nearly four years ago, the corporation stocks significantly rose with the prospect that immigration arrests would increase, as they actually did.
During 2019, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, kept up to 50,000 people in jail, including adults and minors, and 80 percent of them were locked up in private, profit-making prisons.
Although the companies were accused of mistreating prisoners -- by giving them poor quality food and bad health care, as well as exploiting them by making them work for meager wages -- the private prison industry is betting on the Republicans to win, so they can guarantee their money-making businesses.
