Battery Park, N.Y.C. – “Why did you pull him through the window? Why didn’t you approach him when he was walking to the car? Why didn’t you say, ‘Excuse me, can I speak to you?’”
These were the thoughts running through a Bronx native’s head as she watched an ICE agent drag a man from his car earlier this month. The witness shared her story anonymously.
The family had just walked out to their car, she said, and the man had buckled his kids in and then gotten in the driver’s side, when suddenly an ICE agent broke the car window and dragged him out of his car, despite protests from his wife and kids.
“His poor wife was hysterical. Forget about the kids, I was looking at her, she was hysterical. Then the babies, glass everywhere. Glass everywhere,” the witness recalled. “Where did you take him? Just dragged him to the car, didn’t tell his wife nothing, didn’t say nothing to the kids. That’s not the way we’re supposed to be removing people from here. We don’t even treat criminals like that.”
This is one among many stories that demonstrates the increasing number of ICE raids, deportations and detentions in America.
According to ICE’s website, the 2018 fiscal year yielded a 17 percent increase in the number of people deported—and that number is only growing. This increase in deportation is a result of President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
“I think people that want to hate other people have been given a voice,” said Bobbie, a woman from Rochester, N.Y. This “hate” has manifested itself in the U.S.’ newest wave of nativism, targeting largely immigrants who cross our Southern border to get here.
“I grew up in Brooklyn,” said Courtney, a life-long New Yorker in her mid-30s. “When I say that, I mean my entire high school, my junior high school, I had Ecuadorian, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Dominican, Columbian, Panamanian [classmates],” she remembered, looking down at her two young kids. “And then when I got to high school, everyone was from the Carribean. I could not meet an American, no one could tell me they were born here. Everyone was immigrants. But now- that was a good thing back then. But now, no, not anymore.”
Some say President Trump has perpetuated this growing bias, publicly calling Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists.”
“Our President is out of his mind. Out. Of. His. Mind,” said the Bronx local. “This is a businessman, and he’s running a business. He’s not running a country, he’s thinking of his tomorrow. Has nothing to do with us but tomorrow, he’s really thinking of his tomorrow.”
According to the National Immigrant Justice Center, 71 percent of migrant detainees held in ICE custody are housed in facilities operated by private prison companies that ICE has contracted.
CoreCivic (formerly the Corrections Corporation of America) and GEO Group (two of the largest companies ICE has contracted) donate profusely to political campaigns in order to be met with amicable policies. These corporations, and others like them, view these donations as an investment.
When these contracts are made between ICE and private corporations, the corporations get their money no matter how many beds the government fills. This creates an incentive for the government to put away as many people as possible in an effort to get their money’s worth, leading to inhumane conditions and overcrowding.
“I don’t know how a human could treat another like that, especially a child,” said May, an Indian immigrant who moved to N.Y.C. as a teen, in response to the overcrowding. “I try not to think about it.”
California lawmakers have taken a stance against these conditions (and for-profit prisons) by passing a bill that would phase out private prisons and detention centers in an effort to eliminate the profit-incentive that drives much of the overcrowding. This bill, signed by Governor Newsom earlier this October, will phase out private prisons by preventing the renewal of contracts held between the California government and for-profit prisons.
Currently, both GeoGroup and CoreCivic operate detention centers in California. However, contracts for both companies expire in 2020 and they will not have their contracts renewed, eliminating private prisons and ICE detention centers in California.
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