IMMIGRATION

CNN - Mexico hopes to strike a deal with President-elect Donald Trump to limit the number of third-country deportees it could receive from the US, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday. Faced with the prospect of mass deportations across the US-Mexico border, Sheinbaum is setting up meetings with the governors of Mexican border states to "agree on how to receive our compatriots." "We hope [mass deportations] don't happen, but if they do, we will be ready to receive them," she added. Since 2022, US Customs and Border Protection have recorded a yearly average of over 500,000 encounters with migrants from Central American nations, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Thousands of encounters have also involved migrants from Venezuela, Cuba and China, among others.

Guardian -  America’s private immigration detention industry is enjoying a surprise boost from the Biden administration and expecting a windfall from Donald Trump despite being skewered by watchdogs and critics for running civil detention centers with some “horrific” and even lethal conditions.

As a Guardian investigation revealed on Thursday, Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of people and expand private immigration prisons to hold them during that process is already getting a multi-billion dollar head start from Joe Biden’s continued tack to the right on immigration.

Despite widespread complaints about often horrific conditions in detention centers, the Biden administration has extended contracts with privately-run facilities under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), even as members of Congress, federal watchdogs and advocates pushed for their closure.   “Congress allocates over $3bn a year so the US government can maintain the largest immigration detention apparatus in the world,” said Jesse Franzblau, senior policy analyst with the National Immigrant Justice Center.