I have been suggesting that S.B. 1070 is not only racist but is also a play to increase the profits of private prisons. As the Geo Group and Cornell Companies merge to form giant private prison empires, more research is needed to document how much money these companies stand to make by criminalizing immigration status.  As such, I was pleased to find the following article today highlighting a recent study by Grassroots Leadership about how criminalizing the undocumented boosts for-profit-prisons.

From the article:

Bob Libal, a co-author of “Operation Streamline: Drowning Justice and Draining Dollars along the Rio Grande,” presented findings at a panel hosted by the Open Society Institute in July. He noted that since 2005, an estimated $1.2 billion in federal dollars — in Texas alone — have been funneled into warehousing the undocumented in predominantly for-profit private jails and detention centers, while they await trial or serve sentences prior to deportation.

In 2002, according to the report, 2,770 immigrants were sentenced to prison for crossing the border without authorization in two Texas districts along the border. In 2009, that number soared to 44,517. “The expanded criminal add civil immigration detention system has been a huge financial boon to private prison corporations, such as the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) and management and Training Corporation (MTC),” the report found.

More documentation and studies on this phenomenon please…