Data obtained by CAP through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that Immigration and Customs Enforcement elected to detain 68 percent of LGBT immigrants who were eligible for release in fiscal year 2014.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s bed quota is becoming increasingly outdated, inefficient, and inhumane.
Nearly two-thirds of all immigrant detainees are held by the Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, and the Geo Group Inc.
The bed quota costs taxpayers $600 million each year that could go toward housing vulnerable populations.
Immigrants that are fighting their deportation cases are detained the longest.
Seventy percent of detained immigrants are subject to mandatory detention; the other 30 percent are detained to meet the quota.
Each day, a congressional mandate requires that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detains 34,000 immigrants.