U.S. Prisons Traffic People Too
Martha’s Story
Martha Gonzalez. Photo is from In These Times.
Martha Gonzalez fled Mexico in an act of desperation. She was trying to escape an abusive relationship when she decided to pay coyotes to help get her and her daughter across the border. As with so many others who feel they have no option but to seek safety in the United States by any means necessary, Martha was exploited by the coyotes she paid to get her across the border. They threatened Martha and her daughter with violence and forced Martha into sex work. Martha finally made it to the United States, only to be met by a new trafficker: the US private prison industry.
Martha finally reached the United States where she was held by Imigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It took 14 months for the government to formally recognize that Martha was a surivivor of human trafficking who did not belong in prison. Although she was finally issued a T-1 visa, specifically reserved for trafficking victims, she was not treated like a victim in her plea for safety, she was treated like a criminal.
Not only is CoreCivic one of the 1,000 wealthiest US corporations, it is also the company that held Martha and profited off of her forced labor. As a part of its contract with the United States government, CoreCivic operates a “voluntary” work program for detainees (The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Performance-Based National Detention Standards of 2011 requires these work programs to be voluntary). According to Martha however, these programs were far from voluntary. During her time in detention:
“CoreCivic forced her to clean the detention facilities, cook meals for company events, engage in clerical work, provide barber services for fellow detainees, maintain landscaping, and other labors. And if she refused, the company would impose more severe living conditions, including solitary confinement, physical restraints, and deprivation of basic human needs such as personal hygiene products.”
Martha was one of the many detainees at the Laredo Detention Center, Texas that was forced to work for $1 to $2 per day. Others were forced to work with no compensation whatsoever.
The Bigger Picture
Private prisons like CoreCivic exist to make money and benefit tremendously from being out of sight and mind from the general public. Often, when corporations evade public accountability, corporate responsibility falls wayside. In the case of private prisons, this means that economic motives trump rehabilitation efforts and other initiatives necessary in a true justice system. This is the context in which Martha Gonzalaz, a human trafficking survivor, came to be retrafficked by the U.S. prison system.
Forced labor can be understood as work that is performed involuntarily and under the menace of any penalty. Although the U.S. rhetorically stands firmly against labor trafficking, loopholes in the legal system dating back to the Antebellum South allow prisons to take advantage of inmates and treat them as existing outside of universal notions of basic human rights. These loopholes are outdated, inhumane, and rooted in the US economy's historical roots in slave labor.
Inmate firefighters at the Water Fire in Riverside County. Photo from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Immigrants aren’t the only population labor trafficked by the US prison system. “Labor trafficking” is often used interchangeably with “modern day slavery,” but when we understand that Black Americans are 5.1 times more likely to be imprisoned than White Americans, it’s clear that there is nothing “modern” about it. The US prison system is slavery with a new face, built to justify a new economy. During the horrific fires that swept California in 2019 for example, 770 inmates from 21 different fire camps were among the 5,600 Cal Fire personnel assigned to contain the Camp Fire. They were paid $1-2 per hour and given no path to employment with the fire service upon release from prison, despite their heroic service. The inmates selected for fire service are imprisoned for minor charges and are often put in some of the most dangerous lines of service. As with all forms of exploitation there is a clear economic motive behind paying incarcerated firefighters such low wages: The program saves the state of California $90 million to $100 million a year.
Data is from TheSentencingProject.org
Why This Issue Remains Hidden
CoreCivic’s business model is the false narrative that immigrants are lazy criminals here to take American jobs. When racist stereotypes are espoused up to the highest levels of the US government, immigrant populations are dehumanized and in turn, systems such as the private prison industry, which benefit from forced immigrant labor, are normalized. In other words, the US government profits off of racism. This is why we need to begin moving away from narratives of the prison system as the objective face of justice.
What Now?
CoreCivic’s forced immigrant labor only scratches the surface of the issue. While racist anti-immigrant narratives continue to proliferate, the US economy contrarily relies on immigrant labor and the private prison industry continues to reap immense financial wealth from incarcerated labor. Mass incarceration has been a driving force of economic inequality in the US and Black and Latino Americans bear the brunt of a system which traps generations into poverty.
Here’s what needs to happen to stop the US prison industrial complex from exploiting not only immigrants like Martha, but millions of people from various vulnerable populations:
Concrete legal protections for inmates: Not all prison labor is forced labor but because inmates have little to no avenues to protect themselves from abuse, prisons present ripe conditions for abuse to take place. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently found that private immigration detention operators including CoreCivic are not exempt from adhering to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This is a step in the right direction but we still need immense legal reconstruction to ensure all incarcerated persons have their fundamental rights protected.
Hold prisons accountable: Because prisons are so removed from the general public, what goes on inside is hidden and thus shielded from public accountability. As it stands, most of the information the public receives about private prison conditions comes from interviews with inmates and their family members. At a minimum, private prisons should be subject to public records requests.
End for-profit prisons: A growing number of states have begun banning private prisons and some companies have begun cutting ties with CoreCivic, but more needs to be done to end this industry, which narrows profit margins through forced labor. Private prisons still hold about 11 percent of the nation’s 193,000 federal prisoners.
End racist stereotyoes: Where abuse does occur, political leaders and those in the private prison system attempt to justify action by playing on existing racist tropes. We cannot expect systems to treat incarcerated persons with respect and dignity if our language does not do the same.
To learn more about how Free To Thrive is working to address the legal needs of human trafficking survivors, visit www.FreeToThrive.org.
About the Author: Mira Seyal is the Development Assistant at Free to Thrive. She creates written and visual content, offers administrative support, helps maintain donor relations, and develops creative ways to increase funding and membership. Mira also runs the team’s social media pages.