The practice of depriving deportees of their money happens on a "massive scale", Jones said, with private companies and for-profit private prisons enjoying "record profits off of the suffering of the most vulnerable people in our society".
US debit card companies convince prisons that returning money taken from illegal immigrants upon detention on prepaid cards is convenient, he explained. "Quite simply these prisons return money in the form of prepaid cards because the prepaid card companies lobby and influence them to do so."
He noted that "people in Mexico can't call customer service to get help because all their money is on the card that doesn't work", and even if they do, the companies have "little incentive to help them", as the prisons, rather than those who have been deported, are the card companies' actual clients.
"When the cards don't work and people can't get their money, guess who keeps the money?" he asked.
The report notes one company in particular, Numi Financial, which positions itself as the "the leader in stored value card solutions" for the criminal justice system.
"Numi Financial is a corporate sponsor of the California Sherriff's association, which coincidentally runs county jails that give people their money on Numi Financial prepaid debit cards when they are released, including to those who are released to ICE and then deported," Jones told Sputnik.
More than 360,000 deportations were carried out in the United States last year. According to a University of Arizona study released at the end of 2013, about a third of people deported from the United States were not given back all their belongings upon deportation.
US Abuses of Mexican Immigrants Creating Humanitarian Crisis
“The militarization of our southern border with Mexico and the criminalization of immigrants, including sending them to jail for long stretches of time, along with the separation of families by deporting moms, dads, brothers and sisters from the country, is a horrific, traumatic situation that is only getting worse,” Jones said.
The actions of US authorities have created a “humanitarian crisis that needs a humanitarian response,” Jones told Sputnik.
In “Shakedown”, a report recently published by the Arizona-based No More Deaths organization, Jones and his co-authors looked into the practice by US authorities of depriving deportees of their money and belongings before deporting them.
“If you consider that Border Patrol agents who have shot and killed people through the border fence into Mexico have never been prosecuted, the likelihood that they would be charged for losing or stealing people's belongings is minimal,” he said, noting that ICE and Border Patrol “routinely protect and shield their agents from punishment.”
In late November, US President Barack Obama announced a plan to fix the country’s “broken immigration system” and vowed to focus enforcement resources on criminals, rather than families and children. The president’s plan could allow up to 5 million immigrants who have lived in the country illegally for more than five years avoid deportation.
More than 360,000 persons were deported from the United States in 2013. In the first five years of Obama’s presidency, US authorities carried out more than 1.9 million deportations.
