You’re reading the words of a formerly undocumented immigrant.
When I fled El Salvador four decades ago, I was 12 years old and alone. I was escaping the country’s civil war, where U.S.-backed death squads had made murders and rape our daily reality.
I reunited with my sisters, my only surviving family, in Wichita, Kansas. Once there, I helped open churches, started businesses, and raised three daughters. There were times I wasn’t sure we’d make it to the end of the month, but I was grateful for the sense of peace and security we were able to create here.
That’s why I’m so alarmed that the new Republican-led Congress has chosen to open with a bill, H.R. 29, that strikes fear in the hearts of immigrant families all across the country. This bill would strip judges of discretion and require immigrants to be detained and subject to deportation if they’re accused — not even convicted — of even minor offenses like shoplifting.
This major assault on due process won’t keep anyone safer. It would terrorize all immigrants in this country, who studies show are much less likely to commit crimes of any kind than native-born Americans.
So who benefits from H.R. 29? Private prison corporations like CoreCivic and GEO Group, who made a fortune during the last Trump administration by running private prisons for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
CoreCivic and GEO kept immigrants and asylum seekers in inhumane and toxic conditions with poor hygiene and exposed women and children to sexual predators. Under this new law, cynical executives will siphon off more public dollars, and wealthy investors will reap more rewards, from abusing and demonizing people seeking refuge from violence or poverty.
When Trump won, private prison stocks soared. Why? Because investors anticipated making a fortune detaining immigrants. More than 90 percent of migrants detained by ICE end up in for-profit facilities.
GEO Group, which maxed out its campaign contributions to Trump, told its investors they could make almost $400 million per year supporting “future needs for ICE and the federal government” in a second Trump term. Their stock price nearly doubled in November.
Whether those detained are guilty or not, CoreCivic and GEO get paid. That’s what H.R. 29 is for: advancing corporate greed, not protecting Americans.
We all have a stake in stopping private prison corporations from becoming more powerful, regardless of our language, race, gender, or community. In addition to jailing immigrants, for-profit prison companies also look for ways to put citizens in prison more often — and for longer — so they can make more money.
Whenever we allow fundamental rights to be taken away, we erode our shared humanity and diminish all of our rights and freedoms.
The people behind H.R. 29 want us to be afraid of each other so we won’t stand together. They want to be able to barge into our homes, schools, and churches to take our neighbors and loved ones away. They want workers to be too scared to stand up to their bosses’ abuse. All so their donors in the private prison industry can make more money.
Democrats will need to find their way in this new Congress. Falling in line behind nativist fear-mongers who take millions in campaign contributions from the private-prison industry is not the right way to do it.
Americans demand better. We want true leadership with an affirmative vision for the future of this country and dignity for all people, including immigrants.
H.R. 29 targets whole communities because of the language we speak and the color of our skin. Instead, our elected leaders, regardless of party, must work to address people’s needs through building an economy that works for all of us, not just the wealthy few.
Sulma Arias is executive director of People’s Action, the nation’s largest network of grassroots power-building groups, with more than a million members in 30 states. This op-ed was adapted from OurFuture.org and distributed for syndication by OtherWords.org.
