Trump's Zero Tolerance Incarcerations-- Follow The Money

Ben Ray Lujan (right), Pelosi's DCCC chairman, takes blood money from the crooks building private immigrant detention facilities for Trump. Why won't he return the cash?

This week the organization In The Public Interest issued a report-- An examination of private financing for correctional and immigration detention facilities-- that examines the finances behind Trump's ramping up of the criminalization of immigration. The Department of Homeland Security has been instructed to "accelerate resource capacity." The report shows how private prison corporations CoreCivic and GEO Group are primed to provide additional immigration detention space by privately financing new facility construction, a new business frontier-- privately financing new facilities through "public-private partnerships." Providing financing to governments has become a central growth strategy as both companies became Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in 2013, requiring them to have significant real estate holdings.  REIT status allows the corporations to avoid corporate-level taxation. GEO Group received almost $44 million in tax benefits in 2017.

While governments have traditionally used municipal bonds to finance the construction of correctional facilities, there is evidence that the two major private prison companies, CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA) and GEO Group, are actively pushing governments to consider the use of private financing to build new facilities, and that governments are increasingly interested in the idea. This focus on building new prison and immigration detention facilities with private financing (known as “public-private partnerships”) represents a critical shift in these companies’ business model.

Friday, In These Times published an essay by David Dayen, These Private Prison Companies Are Already Profiting Off of Trump’s Order on Family Separation. "[T]he Trump administration," he wrote, "still has the goal, expressed in the order, of detaining families together indefinitely, until their immigration cases are complete. That goal is contingent on convincing a federal judge to rip up the Flores settlement, a 1997 agreement that says migrant children can only be kept up to 20 days in non-secure, licensed facilities. On June 21, Trump’s Department of Justice asked a judge to change the rules, but the Obama administration asked for the same changes in 2016 and was rebuked."

In the last few years, the private prison companies have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump, Republicans and Blue Dogs in exchange for their support.

Last cycle the dozen members of the House who took the biggest bribes from the GEO Group were:

• Carlos Curbelo (R-FL)- $10,000
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- $9,690
• Scott Tipton (R-CO)- $7,500
• Mike Bishop (R-MI)- $6,000
• Steve Russell (R-OK)- $5,000
• Michael McCaul (R-TX)- $5,000
• Steve Knight (R-CA)- $5,000
• Will Hurd (R-TX)- $5,000
• John Culberson (R-TX)- $5,000
• Don Bacon (R-NE)- $5,000
• Rod Blum (R-IA)
• Barbara Comstock (R-VA)

Tom Guild, the progressive Democrat whose Oklahoma primary is Tuesday noted that his far right Republican opponent, Steve Russell, is one of Congress' biggest supporters of the for-profit prison industry-- and, in return, the industry has funded his political career in a big way. "Public-private partnerships," Tom told us yesterday,"between elected officials creating 'demand' for additional detention facilities and private owners of such incarceration factories looking for a big pay day constitute old fashioned pay-for-play corruption. Steve Russell (R-OK) taking huge campaign gratuities from the private detention facilities industry earns him an honorary membership in the DC Swamp and is not a notable man bites dog storyline. Russell and Trump are two peas in a pod sharing the characteristics of avarice and greed while swimming in a putrid smelling self-dealing cesspool. It’s no wonder that Americans who currently approve of Congress' performance are limited to close friends and family members of those serving in Congress. Hopefully, the good folks in Oklahoma’s fifth congressional district will give Steve his walking papers soon. Then, he can go out into the 'real world' and earn an honest living for a change while chafing under the laws he created."

They also put mammoth amounts of cash into directed PACs-- $170,000 into Trump Victory, $50,000 into another Trump front group-- Rebuilding America Now and then $50,000 each to Republican Super PACs and Dark Money committees like Win In 2016, NRSC Targeted State Victory Committee and the Florida First Project and $25,000 each to House Majority 2016, Conservative Congress Now!, NRCC, Growing A Sustainable Future, and the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

So far this cycle they've ponied up big bucks for several shady groups like Kevin McCarthy's Victory Fund ($45,000), various GOP building funds (over $100,000), and $10,000 each for John Culberson's PAC, Rick Scott's PAC, Henry Cuellar's PAC Paul Ryan's PAC and, hold your nose, the DCCC. And this year's dozen biggest GEO Group bribe-takers so far:

• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog, TX)- $10,000
• John Culberson (R-TX)- $10,000
• John Carter (R-TX)- $10,000
• Scott Taylor (R-VA)- $6,000
• Ron DeSantis (R-FL)- $5,000
• Matt Gaetz (R-FL)- $5,000
• Tom Graves (R-GA)- $5,000
• David Pence (R-IN)- $5,000
• John Katko (R-NY)- $5,000 (returned)
• Robert Aderholt (R-AL)- $3,500
• Vicente Gonzalez (Blue Dog-TX)- $2,500
• Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM)- $2,500

The other big private prison spender in Congress is CoreCivic. So who were the big bribe takers from these crooks? Last cycle's dozen worst-- you know with some of these congress crooks, a pattern emerges:

• John Culberson (R-TX)- $11,500
• Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN)- $11,200
• Diane Black (R-TN)-$11,000
• Will Hurd (R-TX)-$7,500
• Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)- $5,000
• John Carter (R-TX)- $5,000
• Paul Ryan (R-WI)- $5,000
• Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)- $5,000
• Ander Crenshaw (R-FL)- $5,000
• Tim Ryan (D-OH)- $4,500
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- $4,000
• Gregg Harper (R-MS)- $4,000

And so far this cycle... you can recognize some of the names that are constantly getting blood money from the private prison industry... repulsive characters like John Culberson of Texas for example-- always standing up and fighting for the private prison industry. Here are the 5 worst House members so far in 2018

• Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)- $19,100
• John Culberson (R-TX)- $11,000
• John Rose (R-TN)- $7,700
• Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN)- $5,500
• Greg Pence (R-IN)- $3,500

Mike Siegel, the progressive Democrat running for the very gerrymandered Texas seat that Trump enabler Michael McCaul occupies mentioned to my yesterday that "McCaul is responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Trump Administration. As Homeland Security Chair, he has been an architect of the Travel Ban, a proponent of the Border Wall, and a defender of Family Separation. Not only are his actions immoral, but his acceptance of campaign contributions from the private prison industry-- and his advocacy to demand full occupancy of detention centers-- is downright corrupt. I am confident that the voters of the Texas 10th will not look kindly on his actions."