House Panel Prods Migrant Detention Firms for Info, Suggests Conflict by Trump's Ex-chief of Staff

WASHINGTON -- The House oversight committee stepped up its pressure Thursday on the Trump administration’s migrant policies, demanding profit data from companies that run detention facilities, along with records related to alleged mistreatment and neglect of child migrants.The demands come after the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general documented widespread overcrowding and squalor at border facilities where migrants are detained, including crammed cells and a lack of showers and hot meals.On Wednesday, the committee put a spotlight on the treatment of migrant children with emotional testimony from a Guatemalan woman whose 21-month-old daughter died in May 2018, soon after three weeks in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dilley, Texas.“The Committee is investigating the Trump Administration’s rapidly increasing use of for-profit contractors to detain tens of thousands of immigrants, including a troubling series of reports of health and safety violations and the dramatically escalating and seemingly unchecked costs to U.S. taxpayers for these contracts,” said Oversight chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings one of his subcommittee chairmen, Rep. Jamie Raskin, both Maryland Democrats.The committee is focused on CoreCivic, GEO Group, Inc., and DC Capital Partners, LLC--the parent company of Caliburn International and its subsidiary, Comprehensive Health Services, which runs a 2,400-bed shelter for immigrant children in Homestead, Fla.  Continue reading...