America's Private Prisons Are Back in Business
- Immigration prosecutions now outnumber those for drug offenses
- Fortunes of for-profit prison firms echo U.S. policy changes
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In the hardscrabble desert hamlet of Milan, New Mexico, incarceration is the biggest game in town.
Not far from Interstate 40, among fragrant sage and creosote bushes, stands a sprawling outpost of CoreCivic Inc., one of America’s biggest for-profit prison companies. The 1,200-bed facility, formerly a lockup for car thieves and drug dealers, is being transformed into a detention center for immigrants fleeing Mexico and Central America. It will be opening just as Donald Trump becomes president.