By Jorge Mederos

Chicago, Apr 21 (EFE).– Private prisons that have contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress to keep a steady population of 34,000 migrants detained at all times, a study by the Austin, Texas-based Grassroots Leadership group found.

Grassroots Leadership researched detention conditions across the country and concluded that nine of the 10 facilities used by the Department of Homeland Security to hold undocumented immigrants were private, and eight of them were owned by two corporations that have posted record profits since 2009.

Since late 2007, according to the study, GEO Group has increased its profits by 244 percent, while Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, has seen its earnings grow by 46 percent.

The two companies manage 62 percent of the beds available for undocumented immigrants under detention, and they channel millions of dollars into lobbying to protect their business, the report said.

There is a daily quota of detainees that in 2014 was set at 34,000 people, making the private jails “the main beneficiaries of aggressive detention policies” by immigration authorities, the study said.

The study estimated the average cost of detaining a person in private jails leased by immigration authorities at $159 per day, and found that the average length of detention was 31 days.

The report, however, said there were exceptions and, as of late December 2012, almost 4,800 people had spent at least six months in ICE’s custody “and a dozen individuals spent between six and eight years,” while there was one person who was detained 17.3 years.

Pro-immigrant advocates across the nation, like the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, or ICIRR, have criticized and opposed the growing role of private prisons.

“We are opposed to the system, and we deplore it,” ICIRR political director Fred Tsao told Efe. “Nobody should profit from the imprisonment of immigrants.”

Tsao led a coalition of groups that in 2012 and 2013 opposed the construction by Tennessee-based CCA of jails in an area 60 kilometers (38 miles) around Chicago.

ICE argued that it did not have a detention center in the region and was forced to lease jail space in nearby counties. EFE