STOP GEO from building two new detention facilities in McFarland!

In McFarland, GEO is trying to build two new detention facilities to detain immigrant community members in an attempt to appease their stockholders, who are worried about strong CA legislation against private prisons.   

The action we need to take:

We must remember that all city governing bodies are accountable to its people and corporations are not people. We must challenge McFarland City Planning Commission and McFarland City Council on its values and community commitments!

We need you to join us in mobilizing to local city meetings to demand McFarland cut all ties from GEO and companies who are putting local residents public safety at risk!

• Make a call to McFarland City Council and demand an urgent ordinance to stop any issuing of permits to GEO (661) 792-3091
• Submit a written comment to McFarland City Community Development Director mlara@mcfarlandcity.org

TALKING POINTS FROM FREEDOM FOR IMMIGRANTS:

Private Prisons are BAD for McFarland

Who is GEO?

GEO is a private company that has been profiting from the incarceration of black, people of color, and immigrant communities since 1984. GEO and 1 other private prison corporation (CCA) have a monopoly over private detention; they house about 75% of persons confined in private prisons in the U.S. Both of these corporations are amongst the top contributors to the Trump administration. Their donations have resulted in the passage of harmful policies that have increased detention levels in the US by 500% in recent years – thus creating a prison for profit cycle fueled by the incarceration of OUR communities.

In McFarland, GEO is trying to build two new detention facilities to detain immigrant community members in an attempt to appease their stockholders, who are worried about strong CA legislation against private prisons.   

But won’t new prisons create more jobs and opportunities in McFarland?

No. Here’s why:

• For profit prisons pay sub-standard wages and benefits to all employees while annually rewarding their top executives with millions while falsely claiming to save taxpayers money
• Private prisons divert funds from public services like parks, schools and hospitals to private companies like GEO with little to no oversight.
• More private prisons create incentives for incarceration. It is common sense that if GEO profits from detention, its main goal to drive profit is to incarcerate more people
• In cities like Adelanto where GEO operates one of the most notorious and dangerous detention facilities in the country, quality of life has not improved for community members. On the contrary, GEO has almost unfettered access to do what it wants with local county officials that are dependent on and entangled in its dirty business.

The action we need to take!

We must remember that all city governing bodies are accountable to its people and corporations are not people. We must challenge McFarland City Planning Commission and McFarland City Council on its values and community commitments!

We need you to join us in mobilizing to local city meetings to demand McFarland cut all ties from GEO and companies who are putting local residents public safety at risk!

• Make a call to McFarland City Council and demand an urgent ordinance to stop any issuing of permits to GEO (661) 792-3091
• Submit a written comment to McFarland City Community Development Director mlara@mcfarlandcity.org

 

MORE TALKING POINTS:

GEO is aggressively attempting to expand its prison for profit scheme in California as a desperate response to nationwide outcry over GEO and ICE’s long track record of human rights violations.

• Policies like AB32 that take a bold stance against ICE and GEO’s dirty business are scaring GEO’s stockholders, who are urging CEO George Zoley to desperately look for additional funding sources

Cities across California like Coachella and Santa Ana are taking bold stances against a xenophobic and morally wrong immigration enforcement agency. It’s time for Mcfarland to join these cities by uplifting their community through protective ordinances that prevent the expansion of for-profit detention centers

• This isn’t a question of jobs. There is no dollar amount that can be placed on morality and community values.
• Communities entrenched in prison economies become dependent on the continued and growing incarceration of individuals
• Cities like Adelanto are an example of how private prison companies have their way with local city officials by leveraging jobs

The population of McFarland is 95.6% latinx. This demographic has been subject to countless instances of racial profiling and targeted harassment by ICE. Creating more detention centers in their community will do nothing positive for the residents of McFarland.

• On the contrary, detention centers like Mesa Verde or the proposed facilities by GEO create a psychological chill factor in working class communities like McFarland.

GEO can’t cover up the truth. Detention is inhumane, unnecessary, and carries a shocking record of abuse and in-custody deaths.

• At least 15 people have died in immigration detention in California since 2010, with two in 2019. In Adelanto, guards mocked survivors of suicide attempts, neglected basic medical attention, and oversaw physical and verbal abuse of immigrants.
• GEO’s Private prisons have also been the scene of horrific abuses. In 2012, a federal judge found that a GEO-run youth prison in Mississippi “allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate,” including brutal beatings by guards.
• The detention of immigrants in the U.S. has gone up a shocking 500%, even as the number of immigrants to the U.S. has gone down.
  • Many immigrants who’ve called our communities home for decades are held in immigration detention. Unfair policies tie the immigration system to the criminal legal system, which suffers from racial profiling and obstacles to equal justice.

 

Immigration detention, like all forms of  incarceration, is inhumane and unnecessary. Now is the time to raise our voices for real solutions.

• Be it for-profit detention centers and prisons, or cages run by the government, mass incarceration is wrong and abusive. Tackling for-profit detention is a crucial starting point.
• AB 32 is a starting point for a national movement. Communities across the country are organizing to replace immigration detention with a system of community-based case management. Studies prove this works better than the current harsh approach of detention.

As we work to free detained community members and defend AB 32, we need to stand with detained people who are raising their voices for justice.