$11 toothpaste: Immigrants pay big for basics at private ICE lock-ups
Source: Reuters
TRUMP EFFECT JANUARY 18, 2019 / 1:09 AM / UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO
$11 toothpaste: Immigrants pay big for basics at private ICE lock-ups
Michelle Conlin, Kristina Cooke
9 MIN READ
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Detained in a California lockup with hundreds of other immigrants seeking asylum, Duglas Cruz faced a choice.
-snip-
A can of commissary tuna sold for $3.25. That is more than four times the price at a Target store near the small desert town of Adelanto, about two hours northeast of Los Angeles. Cruz stuck with ramen noodles at 58 cents a package, double the Target price. A miniature deodorant stick, at $3.35 and more than three days’ wages, was an impossible luxury, he said.
“If I bought that there wouldn’t be enough money for food,” Cruz said.
Tuna and deodorant would seem minor worries for detainees such as Cruz. Now 25, he sought asylum after fleeing gangs trying to recruit him in his native Honduras, a place where saying “no” can mean execution.
But immigration attorneys say the pricey commissary goods are part of a broader strategy by private prisons to harness cheap inmate labor to lower operating costs and boost profits.
Immigrants and activists say facilities such as Adelanto, owned by Boca Raton, Fla.-based Geo Group Inc (GEO.N), the nation’s largest for-profit corrections company, deliberately skimp on essentials, even food, to coerce detainees to labor for pennies an hour to supplement meager rations.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-detention/11-toothpaste-immigrants-pay-big-for-basics-at-private-ice-lock-ups-idUSKCN1PC0DJ
