Can you just say depraved? Private Prisons are Cashing in on Trump's Immigration Raids

[jfz9580m]

Last edited Wed Mar 11, 2026, 09:10 AM - Edit history (3)

To be clear, the operational logic here never was and never is about efficiency and common sense reduction of bureaucracy.

It is about reducing the access the average citizen has to pertinent information, their own rights, a say in civil society.

Because a labyrithm of bullshit red-tape makes it hard for anyone decent to live. It is about removing oversight, regulations and rules that typically make it harder for parasitic for-profits to leech us dry, deplete earth’s resources and eventually yours and mine.

The Niemoller poem applies very much to how we have treated factory farmed animals, earth, the poorest and worst off people in society and that logic is a hog that can never be satisfied. (Private equity takeover of hospitals is another example of bottomless greed).

If there is such a thing as karma, and it may be the only way forward, all these greedy blood-sucking, heartless and parasitic for-profits and their endless wars on earth, its lifeforms, the human mind, on every functioning human system, will not end well.

https://www.salon.com/2026/01/28/private-prisons-are-cashing-in-on-trumps-ice-crackdown-theyre-just-getting-started/

Private prisons are cashing in on Trump’s ICE crackdown. They’re just getting started
Over 90 percent of detained immigrants languish in prisons that aren't actually run by the government

By NICHOLAS LIU

Immediately after President Trump’s election victory in 2024, private prison stocks soared and company executives could hardly contain their glee. As Trump’s immigration crackdown has accelerated, so has enthusiasm for the business of keeping people caged.

More than 90,000 people are incarcerated in private prisons across the United States, where the purpose of holding them is dominated by an incentive to maximize profit, as with any successful business. Many more people live in federal and state prisons where private contractors often source the food and medical care, or receive easy labor from its inhabitants. The more people Immigration and Customs Enforcement puts behind bars, the better for private prison corporations like GEO Group and CoreCivic — which is why, according to critics, they’ve been eagerly cheering on the Trump deportation agenda.

But these stories of abuse and neglect usually only see the light of day under extreme circumstances. The primary difference between public and private prisons, experts told Salon, is that private prisons operate in an even more impenetrable black box than public prisons. Kristie Puckett, a lobbyist who pushes against mass incarceration and the barriers for reentry into society, said that private prisons have “long found success hiding information” about their treatment of people detained in their facilities.

“Private prison companies can justify their non-transparency by saying it’s a proprietor to sensitive information and trade secrets, so it’s harder to get those public records,” she continued. “It’s much harder to enter those facilities to monitor conditions, and when abuse happens, when the company faces a lawsuit, they tend to settle those quietly rather than create any meaningful systemic change. If they decided to just terminate the contract in a certain jurisdiction and walk away from the problem, they can do that rather than fix the problem across the system.”

Apparently it is up to 90,000 detainees. Most living in hellish conditions. Odds are no one even knows the exact number.
Immigration to the US is broken. It is why I came back to India. It was driven for far too long by the CATO/Koch brother race-to-the-bottom logic which absolute ignores any limits to growth and concepts like homeostasis, exploiting instead the overpopulation of the global south and Latin American countries (where in fairness the US has had a lot to do wrt interference that derailed the stability of those countries).

Attacks on birth control funding internationally and attacks on fixes to climate change are examples of how little cohesion there is in a worldview that promotes overpopulation and engineers a refugee crises while feigning concern about border security.

One could almost speculate, were one inclined to cynicism, that there is perhaps even secret support for uncontrollable forces that drive the migration of desperate people fleeing drug cartels and the unlivable conditions caused by climate change if that helps some parties and politicians over others.

I was happy to leave the United States, as what I saw as a legal visitor and mediocre scientist/marijuana user (those two things are unconnected) made me choose to leave.

I saw a quote on DU long back around the time of the Iraq War: “A country that does not take care of the veterans it has, has no business making more.” That applies to immigration as well.

When you cannot allow a dignified existence to people already in the country and are rolling out a callous, corrupt tech parasite overlord built surveillance state and with the dregs of every professional community nodding along, you have no business shilling the sort of bullish on race-to-the-bottom trash the Ben Wray types promote in the always execrable Jacobin, where an Indian economist (that field along with most of computer science and Hollywood/Bollywood etc. is a cancer) is cited saying the most tone-deaf rot I ever heard.

By contrast Bishop Marian Budde’s remarks from 2025 were moving and rather than painting immigrants as legos to move around at the behest of of lobbying groups (to paraphrase the inimitable Andy Nikiforuk) humanized immigration. I fail to see what was polarizing about her remarks. If anything they are in the finest Christian tradition which cannot with any truth be said about hysterical invocations of Armageddon.

Promoting Intelligent design or creationism over evolutionary biology is not very Christian (as Epstein rehabilitator from the MIT Media Lab, Rosalind Picard does). Bishop Marian Budde’s plea for mercy is in the spirit of Jesus Christ, a reformer who was crucified for being radical by the standards of his time. “Turn the other cheek”, “love thy neighbor as thine own self”, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” were radical by the standards of their time.

Rosalind Picard also used to shill “emotion as a service” with another of fraudulent “immigrant success story”, a girlboss type Rana Al Khalouby. It is a toss up for me between that woman, Fei Fei Li of Stanford, Vinod Khosla, Zuckerberg’s moll, Balaji Srinivasan, Chamath Palihapitiya, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Mitesh Bohra, Suhail Doshi, Ragy Thomas, Aravind Panagariya, Vincent Palathingal, Clare Wu and Shalab Kumar, who my least favorite American immigrant “success story” is.

As those people live on the fat of the land along with Marc Andreessen, Paul Singer, the Cargill heirs, the surviving Koch brother and other obscenely wealthy people with mostly bullshit jobs, these other immigrants languish in those hells with no relief in sight.

http://m.richmondfreepress.com/news/2025/jan/23/in-sermon-to-trump-bishop-budde-pleads-for-immigrants-transgender-rights/

https://spectrummagazine.org/views/a-plea-for-mercy-rev-buddes-message/

Millions have put their trust in you. As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now, There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives.

Budde also made a plea for immigrants, a group under fire from Trump’s incoming administration, saying they include people who “pick our crops” and “work the night shift in hospitals,” among other vital roles.

They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara and temples.

Budde then implored the president to “have mercy … on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. Help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

She added: “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.”

Budde concluded: “May God grant us all the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, speak the truth in love and walk humbly with one another and our God, for the good of all the people of this nation and the world.”

When Budde processed by the president as she left the service a few minutes later, Trump stared straight ahead.

Other prayers in the service also made reference to immigrants, refugees and the poor.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. All prisons are for-profit. It just depends who's getting the profit.