1. United States
2. Md.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to launch a comprehensive investigation into financial conflicts of interest in immigration detention contracting and to pursue accountability for those profiting from this system. Recent analysis of three decades of Census and federal budget data from 1994 to 2023 reveals that immigrants generated a cumulative fiscal surplus of $14.5 trillion in inflation-adjusted 2024 dollars. Every single year during this period, immigrants paid more in taxes than they received in benefits. Yet approximately $25 billion per year is now allocated to immigration enforcement under recent budget reconciliation. With ICE agent payroll running about $2 billion annually for roughly 22,500 agents, that leaves $23 billion moving through the system without appearing on timesheets. This money flows through a detention system designed for profit extraction rather than case resolution. Private contractors operate on a per-diem model where they are paid per person, per day. Empty beds represent lost revenue, while full facilities represent optimized capacity. Processing delays are not system failures but revenue optimization. These facilities are strategically located in rural areas and Republican-held congressional districts, functioning as a federally funded redistribution system that moves money from urban areas where immigrants work and generate tax revenue to rural areas where they are detained. I am asking you to investigate who holds financial stakes in these detention contracts, which elected officials have conflicts of interest, and whether occupancy guarantees or performance bonuses based on detention population growth exist in current contracts. Those found to have profited from policies that prioritize detention over case resolution should face prosecution where laws have been violated and removal from office where conflicts of interest exist. The terror communities are experiencing is not about immigration but about monetizing human detention. Until we name this mechanism and hold those profiting accountable, we cannot dismantle it.