“As some blue states are considering more active involvement in oversight of facilities, I think the logical solution to much of that is federal ownership of the facilities,” George Zoley, CEO of GEO Group, said during the company’s earnings call in May. Zoley made clear his thinking on the advantage of federal ownership was all about reducing “unprecedented” lawsuits and oversight. He claimed that transferring the private facilities to the federal government would provide “stronger protections” under the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution.
In a statement to TIME, a DHS spokesperson attributed the acquisition of the two facilities to “sanctuary politicians” who push legislations that make privately-owned prisons “financially infeasible.”
“Now, with federal ownership of these detention centers, which are crucial to ICE’s detention network on the West Coast, ICE retains the detention capacity needed to arrest, detain, and remove illegal aliens,” the statement added.
Read the full article here
