DHS, ICE, and oversight
The federal government spent $1.5 billion of your tax dollars to buy two ICE detention center facilities that it was already using, including Otay Mesa Detention Center right here in San Diego County. The other facility is California City Detention Center, the largest ICE detention center in our state. Both were owned by CoreCivic, a private company, and as part of that deal, DHS purchased Otay Mesa for $739 million — even though it was recently valued at just $168 million. (And yes, Donald Trump owns stock in CoreCivic, but his blatant corruption is a whole other conversation.) For now, CoreCivic is still running the facilities day to day, and we have a lot of unanswered questions about what this deal actually means. I’m deeply concerned it’s an attempt to ramp up local immigration detention, prevent Congressional oversight, and shield the government’s actions from public scrutiny and accountability. But let me be super clear: changing the deed of...