Jan Brewer's desk.īrewer has her own connections to private prison companies. Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies - Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.īy April, the bill was on Gov. In a statement, a spokesman said the Corrections Corporation of America, "unequivocally has not at any time lobbied - nor have we had any outside consultants lobby – on immigration law."Īt the state Capitol, campaign donations started to appear. The prison company declined requests for an interview. That same week, the Corrections Corporation of America hired a powerful new lobbyist to work the capitol. According to records obtained by NPR, two-thirds of them either went to that December meeting or are ALEC members. Thirty-six co-sponsors jumped on, a number almost unheard of in the capitol. Pearce may go there to meet with other legislators, but 200 private companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet with legislators like him.Īs soon as Pearce's bill hit the Arizona statehouse floor in January, there were signs of ALEC's influence. "I go there to meet with other legislators." "I don't go there to meet with them," he said. Pearce said he is not concerned that it could appear private prison companies have an opportunity to lobby for legislation at the ALEC meetings. Pearce's immigration plan became a prospective bill and Pearce took it home to Arizona.
We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together." Hough works for ALEC, but he's also running for state delegate in Maryland, and if elected says he plans to support a similar bill to Arizona's law.Īsked if the private companies usually get to write model bills for the legislators, Hough said, "Yeah, that's the way it's set up. "ALEC is the conservative, free-market orientated, limited-government group," said Michael Hough, who was staff director of the meeting. They called it the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act." "I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation."įour months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona's immigration law. In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants. According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Both have seats on one of several of ALEC's boards.Īnd this bill was an important one for the company. Pearce and the Corrections Corporation of America have been coming to these meetings for years. The 50 or so people in the room included officials of the Corrections Corporation of America, according to two sources who were there. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'" It was there that Pearce's idea took shape. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America - the largest private prison company in the country. It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. But if it's upheld, it requires police to lock up anyone they stop who cannot show proof they entered the country legally. The law is being challenged in the courts. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.īehind-The-Scenes Effort To Draft, Pass The Law That's because prison companies like this one had a plan - a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. "They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.
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He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years - decades even - with illegal immigrants? "They talk how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."īut Nichols wasn't buying. What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.
"He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman." "The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch. Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal. Glenn Nichols, city manager of Benson, Ariz., says two men came to the city last year "talking about building a facility to hold women and children that were illegals."