Cashing In On Crimmigration
"The ACLU and two El Paso attorneys filed suit this morning against federal officials and the administrators of a remote, for-profit West Texas prison on behalf of the family of Jesus Galindo, an immigrant man who died at the prison in December 2008.
The lawsuit – filed in federal court in El Paso – names Geo Group, the scandal-plagued company that runs the facility for the feds; Lubbock-based medical provider Physicians Network Association (PNA); Reeves County; and four federal Bureau of Prisons officials. The complaint takes direct aim at the government's practice of contracting and subcontracting the incarceration of immigrant prisoners to for-profit companies. The predictable result is that corporations are doing it on the cheap – with sometimes deadly results for the prisoners.
"All four entities involved in Mr. Galindo’s custody and care—PNA, GEO, Reeves County, and BOP—bear legal and moral responsibility for his utterly preventable death," the suit charges."
FORREST WILDER in the Texas Observer, Dec. 8, 2010. [And here's a link to the lawsuit; 96 pages, so it may be slow to load, depending on your browser.]