GLENVIEW, Ill. – Why would Governor Rauner support Trump’s policies that jail immigrant families despite more humane, cost-effective alternatives that ensure due process? Tragically, the answer is profit.
ICE detention is a billion-dollar business, and Rauner is personally profiting from it. This is a clear conflict of interest given policy decisions he has the power to make regarding immigration and prison privatization in Illinois. Trump’s policy of separating parents and children at the border is not necessitated by law; rather, it’s a policy designed to traumatize and dehumanize immigrants seeking protection under our asylum laws. Alternatives to detention such as ICE’s now-defunded Family Case Management Program indicated 99% compliance rates at 3% the cost of detention.
Immigration detention has been proven to traumatize vulnerable populations, jeopardize the basic health and safety of those detained, and undermine meaningful access to counsel. Jailing immigrants and asylum seekers is driven by profit and politics, not public safety. Immigration detention is not criminal detention, it never has been, and it never should be.
We as Illinoisans must demand that Governor Rauner divest any interest in companies making a profit on Trump’s inhumane policies.