Five to Read on Immigration

We're not the only ones looking closely at U.S. immigration policy and the many facilities around the country that process deportations. Here are five of the most incisive pieces we've read recently:

• The New York Times: "Divided by Immigration Policy"    The deferral program initiated by the Obama administration in June puts strict definitions on who is — and who is not — eligible. Siblings, best friends, and spouses find themselves on either side of that line.
• AP: Immigrants’ detention profits companies    Campaign donations and lobbying money from the three corporations in charge of most private detention facilities in the U.S. have added up to at least $45 million at the state and federal level over the last ten years. One of those companies is The GEO Group, which operates the Tacoma facility InvestigateWest and The News Tribune profiled this week.
• NBC News: Immigrant detainees land in limbo in Alabama jail    Etowah County Detention Center in northeast Alabama costs ICE just $40 a day per detainee, compared to between $60 and $100 at the Northwest Detention Center. But critics say it comes at a price and that Etowah is one of the worst detention facilities in the country.
• The New York Times: "Young and Alone, Facing Court and Deportation"    The number of unaccompanied youth in the deportation, some as young as 6 years old, has doubled since last year. Reporter Julia Preston looks at what that means for those facing deportation, and the courts that process them.
• AP: "Parents deported, what happens to US-born kids?"    We wrote about Leticia Jimenez-Diaz, a mother of two U.S. citizens facing deportation at the Northwest Detention Center. The Associated Press reports on the nationwide trend: nearly 45,000 parents of children born in the U.S. were deported between January and June of this year.