HILLARY PRIVATE PRISON TIES QUESTIONED BY LATINOS
by Cesar Calderon | August 4, 2015
Cesar Calderon an Arizona Dreamer. After suffering a car accident in 2006 which left him with a disability he graduated from Mesa High School in 2012 and is now enrolled at his local Community College. He is majoring in Journalism and wants to pursue a minor in Political Science. As an aspiring Journalist he looks to inform all of what goes on in the world of politics.
Hillary Clinton has had quite the history with our countries prison systems. As First Lady, she supported her husband, former President Bill Clinton, on Three Strikes Legislation to “get tough on crime.”
Most recently, Mrs. Clinton has disclosed her funders, revealing that two of her major campaign endorsers are from the Geo Group and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), as reported by The Intercept.
The Geo Group operates a number of jails, including immigrant detention centers, all which are for profit. The Corrections Corporation of America, meanwhile, is a company that designs, builds, manages and operates prisons, jails, and immigrant detention centers.
Her ties with both of these companies have come into question, given her stance on immigration.
“She is out of touch. She takes money from people who intend to hurt innocent people, especially immigrant detainees. Latinos need to be aware of her ties with the private prison industry,” says Benjamin Marin, a Business and Leadership Graduate student with Grand Canyon University in Arizona.
Hillary Clinton has come out in support of a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, their parents, and many of the eleven million undocumented residents of this country. She has said she would take executive action, going further than President Obama, if she were elected.
Mrs. Clinton has easily separated herself from many Republican presidential hopefuls who are against immigration reform, stating she will do whatever she could “under the law” to help the immigrant communities if congress fails to act.
“Under the law,” however, has been frequently challenged: for just one of many examples, we can look to the stalling of President Obama’s patently legal action of deferring deportations.
Furthermore, Hillary has failed to explain in detail how she would do it or what would even be possible. She states she will fight for immigrants, but has yet to set a timetable or details for her action.
Mrs. Clinton may yet prove herself a staunch defender of immigrants’ rights to many advocates: Speaking to a group of Dreamers last fall, she said a solution to immigration would be to “Vote more Democrats into office.” Immigrant advocates, however, want to hear more: they want to hear an explanation.
Hillary Clinton has stated she is willing to crack down on “Sanctuary Cities” as reported by Jon Green of the Americanblog, and “a move like that would lead to more immigrants being detained in the very private prisons that are raising money for her campaign.”
The Geo Group states that business could be “adversely affected by changes in existing criminal or immigration laws, crime rates in jurisdictions in which we operate, the relaxation of criminal or immigration enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction, sentencing or deportation practices, and the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by criminal laws or the loosening of immigration laws.”
Victor Hernandez, a nineteen year old Latino who will be voting for his first time, says “ Hilary knows she needs the Latino vote to win and she is just saying what Latinos want to hear to get it. The facts are there, she is being funded by the companies who are out to get us”.
All of these factors have made many Latino and immigrant rights advocates uneasy about her, and could easily cost her the Latino vote, and thus, the election.