Why does Congress allow contractors to exploit immigrants in detention?

From today’s New York Times:

There are more than 48,000 people being held in immigrant detentionin more than 200 facilities in the United States. More than two-thirds of them, according to the National Immigrant Justice Center, are confined by private companies, working on contracts with the federal government. Those numbers have ballooned in the last two years under the Trump administration, drawing new attention to the terrible conditions detainees are living in.

One feature of privately run centers — the Voluntary Work Program — is the subject of six separate lawsuits, which say that privately run immigrant detention centers are coercing detainees into working for a dollar a day and punishing those who don’t. The lawsuits demand, among other things, that the practice stop and that detained workers be paid minimum wage.

Congress should not wait for these lawsuits to be decided. Democrats have won the House, so even if they can’t stop the president’s anti-immigrant push, they can push to raise the obsolete and exploitative $1-a-day wage. And, just as they have rejected Mr. Trump’s request for $5.7 billion for the border wall, they should reject the request for $2.8 billion to expand detentions to 52,000 beds.

Prison labor is nearly as old as the American prison system itself, and it is protected by the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery and indentured servitude except as punishment for a crime. This exception means that prisons can require their prisoners to work, even without compensation.

Read the complete article here.