(MintPress) – With more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, families still live in constant threat of losing a family member in an arbitrary raid by authorities. After introducing model legislation offering undocumented immigrants an eight-year path to citizenship Monday, the Obama administration could make problems worse in the struggle to enact comprehensive immigration reform.
President Obama has deported more than 1.5 million people since taking office in 2008, outpacing deportations under his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Evelyn Obey’s case highlights the ongoing problems of a broken immigration system. Obey, a Guatemalan immigrant mother of two was seized in a 2010 raid after her employer in Newark, N.J. was investigated for having hired undocumented workers.
Obey was taken to a detention facility where she was unable to see her family or receive legal assistance. She died several days later of chronic bronchiolitis and emphysema, leaving behind two orphaned children. Obey sat in prison for days, likely denied access to medical assistance.
For many immigrant families, this is an all too common story.
The U.S. has incarcerated 2.2 million citizens, the most of any country on earth. With just 5 percent of the world population, the U.S. has 25 percent of the total prison population. The growing for-profit prison industry is a driving force preventing comprehensive immigration reform.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is one of the largest publicly-traded corporations on the New York Stock Exchange. CCA has annual revenues of $1.7 billion.
According to the Detention Watch Network, a watchdog advocacy group, approximately half of all undocumented immigrants are sent to private, for-profit prison facilities.
“The for-profit prisons and their lobbyists in Washington and state capitals have successfully blocked immigration reform, have prevented a challenge to our draconian drug laws and are pushing through tougher detention policies. Locking up more and more human beings is the bedrock of the industry’s profits,” writes journalist and rights activist Chris Hedges in a recent article.
Obama’s latest plans for immigration reform does little to clear path to citizenship for the millions currently living in the U.S. without documentation. The draft legislation grants undocumented residents permanent resident status and gives them a green card eight years after the bill is enacted or 30 days after visas are given to everyone who has applied legally.
The draft is considered a “backup plan” if Republicans and Democrats are unable to draft a bipartisan piece of legislation that addresses the core issues.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) led the chorus of Republican critics, issuing a statement late Saturday calling the president’s reported legislation “half-baked and seriously flawed.” He said its approval “would actually make our immigration problems worse.”