I'm the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks

This is the money shot : "Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts.

The more detainees, the more money they make. It stands to reason that these companies have no incentive to release people quickly. What I had experienced was finally starting to make sense."

I don't get the " tiny, freezing cement cell with bright fluorescent lights" and a foil blanket thing though. Why be so nasty? If you are making a business improperly detaining people it would only be likely to cause outrage and get it shut down?

I'm curious as a non American why no one stops this. I mean presumably both political parties have not bothered. Do people in the US think it's ok? I think if that stuff happened in the UK there would be a lot of protests.

Simple. It doesn't cause (genuine) outrage and it doesn't get them shut down. AOC for example, protested these private prisons during Trump's first term and went silent on them when Biden didn't close them.

Here is a tweet from soon after Biden took office in January 2021:

> People must understand the depth of what’s happening here: the President of the United States has ordered a halt to deportations. ICE, a federal agency, is refusing to comply.

> There’s no reforming this rogue dept. It’s time for a new, just vision.

https://x.com/AOC/status/1354211627940384768

A month later she was criticizing DHS for still having Patriot act powers, and lumped ICE with the same criticism:

> People have been writing about the deeply concerning issues with the structure of DHS for a long time.

> This is from 3 years before I was even elected.

> It’s not “fringe” to ask why FEMA & ICE are in the same Dept operation. Or question ICE’s operations

https://x.com/AOC/status/1364619004921413633

A day earlier she called for the abolition of ICE:

> It’s only 2 mos into this admin & our fraught, unjust immigration system will not transform in that time.

> That’s why bold reimagination is so impt.

> DHS shouldn’t exist, agencies should be reorganized, ICE gotta go, ban for-profit detention, create climate refugee status & more.

This one is very apt given OP.

https://x.com/AOC/status/1364349732760518657

She continued, this on is in April 2021:

> A lot of people who are just now suddenly horrified at the dehumanizing conditions at our border are the same folks who dehumanize immigrants + helped build these cages in the 1st place.

> When we tried to stop this infrastructure over a year ago,we were overruled by BOTH parties.

> Fact is a lot of the politicians crying right now don’t work to solve either.

> They vote to grow ICE + CBP cages and they do everything to avoid addressing the root: US foreign policy and interventionism that destabilizes regions, the climate crisis, and unjust economic policy.

https://x.com/AOC/status/1377652851191787532

Your statement that Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez stopped protesting these private prisons while Biden was in office is simply factually wrong. And it was not hard to check it.