Imprisoning Immigrants: With detention centers near the U.S.-Mexico border at capacity, detainees are being held far from the border and legal assistance. These ICE centers bring profits to rural Louisiana, but at what cost? Subscribe to Journeyman here:
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“There's a limited amount of people who are doing the detained cases in Louisiana because they are so far, so rural, so difficult to get to and to handle”, says attorney Homero Lopez, who makes hours long trips across the state of Louisiana to meet his clients in person. One of those clients is Dixan Hernandez Naranjo, imprisoned in Cuba for alleged ‘thought crimes’, who is now in solitary confinement in the US. “We are not criminals. We just simply want to fight for our rights, like anybody who comes to seek asylum”, says Naranjo. There has been a rapid increase in Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions in Louisiana. The state’s jails now hold 8,000 of the total 51,000 held by ICE across the US. The expansion has injected depressed rural communities with a new source of income while increasing budgets for local sheriff departments, as ICE pays nearly three times as much for imprisoning migrants as it does those convicted of crimes. In Northern Louisiana, Jackson Parish Sheriff Andy Brown is on the receiving end of this economic boost. “I have about a five million dollar budget. This year we will probably profit seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the jail”, says Brown.
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PBS Newshour Weekend – Ref. 7689
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