January 27, 2006

Halliburton gets $385 Million detention facilities contract

Halliburton's KBR subsidiary has got yet another "Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity" contract, and this one is of interest both from the immigration and the tin-foil hat perspective. It involves building detention centers. Of course, detention centers are "multi-use facilities" and can be used to keep people in, keep people out, transship people, and so on. They could be used in case of a natural disaster to provide emergency housing. Or, in the case of the bird flu to detain victims, even against their will. Or, they could be used for mass deportations of illegal aliens. Or, they could be used to detain the millions of illegal aliens who'd come here if Mexico completely collapsed. A million and one uses. From this (also here, here, and here):

...The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)] Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.

The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts.

This isn't an entirely new idea; KBR had a similar contract from 2000 to 2005. However, considering Katrina, the bird flu, and the heating up immigration situation it seems to have a bit more saliency. UPDATE: More details in "Deal struck to build immigration jails".

Posted to Miscellania at January 27, 2006 10:40 AM

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