>> the rio franked valley. every day dozens of people risk their lives that separate this part of the united states from mexico. >> what were the border patrol on the border of texas and mexico? it is about 5:30 in the morning and they have just captured two men that say they are from mexico, trying to cross into the united states. >> the number of people

illegally entering the united states from mexico, has dropped to an all time low. but here at the forder and across the country, the crack down continues. we have asked them why they came, and they all said for work. this area alone captures about 5,000 people a month. lap

>> rubio is a rising star in the republican party but it doesn't take long for his speech to be interrupted. >> it is an important issue, in

our community it's a gateway issue. >> why aren't you (inaudible). >> please help us. (inaudible). >> we're going to kick out. >> we don't believe marco rubio's support -- >> what is your name? >> these young activates call themselves dreamers. part of a nationwide movement campaigning for the dream act, legislation that would give undocumented youth who finished high school a pathway to citizenship. >> for somebody to understand what undocumented is, it's basically saying you're invisible to people, you don't have an identification, there's such thing as you don't have an identity, you are living in the shadows. >> jose saucedo and his friends know at any moment they can be placed into detention and deported to a country they barely know. >> i could have been pulled over

by the cops for interrupting such an important meeting but at the same time it's a risk we take every day stepping out of our houses. >> no we can't being live the lives of 11 million people. >> there is another reason 11 million latinos aren't impressed with coe rubio, the geo group, with which houses many of the detainees. >> it was october, of 2011, here was this guy, that said cornell was -- >> the company she's talking about nell is now owned by geo. >> going to be rounding up hundreds of thousands of people and the federal business is going to be the best business for us. >> since 9/11 the revenues have

doubled to over $1 billion a year for the country's two largest private prison companies, cca or the corrections corporation of america and geo. the vast majority of the people held in detection centers. >> keeping us safe from foreign terrorism. it makes no sense but it's making a lot of money for a lot of people. >> this looks like a florida retirement home. but behind the pink walls and palm trees is a detention center. this is th broward detention center. they were anxious to show it to us, it was one of their nicest facilities. >> broward is one of 250 detention facilities contracted by

immigrations and being cch it's to facilitate the removal from the united states of people when they're ordered removed. >> immigration detention has a dark history. hundreds of cases of physical and sexual abuse have been documented. from 2003, to 2009, over 100 people died in ice custody. the obama administration announced they would reform the system. among ice officials, broward is held up as a model of that reform. >> what you'll see in broward as compared to certainly a county jail or some of our other more secure detention facility is a

lot of freedom of movement, you see an interior space where people when they leave their rooms and they're housed in rooms rather than cells are pretty much free to walk anywhere between the perimeter of the -- within the perimeter of the building including outside. >> relatively speaking it looks great, it's probably the facility where most people want to be if they have to be in detention. but it's certainly not an alternative to detention which we were being told by officials it was, when it first opened. >> cheryl has been defending immigrant rights,. >> 80% of immigrants from detention have no attorney and no right to an attorney. >> how can you be in the legal system and not be entitled to an attorney? isn't it a guarantee? >> it's a guarantee if you are in criminal court. it's not a guarantee if you

simply facing removal because of an immigration violation. >> cheryl has been inside every detention facility in the state. she says everyone night is there for a violation of civil not criminal laws. that locking them up when they pose no threat makes no sense. >> we should be releasing people who pose, you know, no risk to communities, who aren't a security risk. who have equities here, rather than rounding up more and more people. >> cheryl arranged for us to meet one of her clients who was recently released. she lives over an hour's drive from miami. >> this is ahomestead, florida, a large mexican population south of miami, she was going to the broward detention center for six months.

>> alejandra, not her real name, had had years of abuse from her husband. she hoped to have asylum in the united states. a few months after arriving alejandra was on the bus when she was stopped by immigration officials. >> they didn't ask for everyone's papers? >> no, no [ spanish ] >> she was hand cuftd and spent a couple of nights at the local jail before being transferre transferred to broward. [ spanish ] >> alejandra is still fighting her immigration case. she is one of the lucky few to get out without being deported. [ spanish ]

if >> if you had an american company using undocumented labor and paying them a dollar a day to offset their cost what should happen to that company? >> so we go after the employers, we try and bring criminal cases wherever the facts allow that. >> what if that company is geo and ice and the workers in the facility are making the food and cleaning the bathrooms for $1 a day? >> you're talking about the chinese in our custody. they are allowed to work if they want to, that's totally voluntary. >> ayes wouldn't tell us how present operators might be saving by using detainee labor. unlike federal prisons working in these facilities is voluntary.

that was not made clear. [ spanish ] >> you know the parallel with the criminal justice system is fairly clear. if you look back at the prison boom, starting in the late '70s into the '80s and the '90s a huge increase of people behind bars in this country in part driven by the drug war. fast-forward a couple of decades and here we've got this new population of people who are said to be dangerous and said to >> watch more "faultlines" on demand or visit aljazeera.com/faultlines. >> tuesday on "the stream". >> selling cocaine was my purpose. >> they had been trafficking on behalf of the united states government. >> renowned filmmaker marc levin discusses his new movie "freeway: crack in the system". "the stream". tuesday, 12:30 eastern. only on al jazeera america.

>> start with one issue. add guests from all sides of the debate and a host willing to ask the tough questions and you'll get the inside story. >> ray suarez hosts "inside story". weeknights at 11:30 eastern. only on al jazeera america. >> the tarting of i am grants in the u.s. isn't anything new, but since the mid 1990's, there's been a systemic push to connect immigrants with national security and criminality. after the oklahoma city bombings in 1995, congress passed laws expanding grounds for the deportation of non-citizens. in the wake of september 11, the patriot act authorized detaining non-citizens and set up a rental industry for those predominantly from muslim countries. the bush administration created ice, under the newly formed

department of homeland security. its goal was to deporter single non-citizen in the country. the bush administration expanded criminal prosecution have undocumented people crossing the border. >> the fact of the matter is the ability of undocumented individuals represents an obvious homeland security threat. >> in 2006, congress passed the secure impact to build a wall along the mexican border. ice promoted programs like secure communities and the criminal alien program that flagged potentially deportable immigrants in state and local jails. since barack obama came to power, secure communities has expanded, leading to a sharp rise in detention and deportations. >> the highest member of removals in our nation's history. >> it has been another record-breaking year at immigration and customs enforcement. >> one half of these were moved more than 195,000 were convicted criminal aliens.

that is, itself, another record, but the bottom line here that is the population that they call criminal includes in the majority, people who have been charged or convicted of criminal activity that is very, very minor or things that, you know the public may not even think of as criminal, possession of marijuana, disorderly conduct traffic violations. >> some of the countries most powerful institutions are meeting with investors. >> outside, a small group of activists of protesting, walking on banks like wells fargo and bank of america to divest from private prison companies. >> this is a community action

and protest of the game conference, a conference of investors that they spend their money investing in for-profit private prisons. >> private prison-- >> she organizes communities against prison privatation all across the southern united states. >> they're into the business for a profit. what is business to them is great recidivism great, three strikes you're out laws, harsh drug laws, that's business for the private prison company. basically, my permanent feeling, they've locked up as many of the african-americans in this community and now going after the immigrants. >> in washington, d.c., private prison lobbyists use the anti immigrant climate to their advantage. with the number of immigrants in detention up threefold since the mid 1990s, it costs over $2 billion a year to lock them up.

the security's an exchange commission emif a face that changes to immigration policies or laws constitute a business risk. to contain that risk, they've spent at least $25 million on lobbying politicians and federal agencies since 9/11. >> once a market is created, where stock holders and company executives see the phenomenon is a money maker for them, it takes on a life of its own. they come in with their lobby i have thes and political connections, the resolving door, people who work in the prison system or detention system and then go work for the private sector or vice versa. >> it's not something i'm aware of or can comment on. i can tell you this, we have detention facilities based on where the need is. we decide who gets detained, how many people get detained, within

the overall resource that is congress appropriates. >> ground zero is texas. the first private prison opened in 1984 to detain immigrants. it is home to 30 privately operated federal facilities today. one of them is the south texas complex where 2,000 men are held. this massive ice facility south of san antonio is operated by geo. >> just like jail. >> he is a legal permanent resident in the u.s. in 2005, he was arrested on

charges of drug possession. he was sentenced to 10 years probation. he went through rehab, quit drugs and got a job working at a homeless shelter. there he met and eventually married his wife, hope. their future seemed bright, but that changed abruptly on marsh 30, 2011. >> i went to open the door and this ice agent pull add gun and i said what's going on. he said are you a citizen? i said no. he said ok, you have to come with us. you have to be detained. >> he said immigration police are here. i opened my eyes, said who are they looking for? he said me! they said that my plea bargain violated my green card. >> i don't know how long the consequences of the actions of my part are going to stay with me. >> his attorney said we're trying to keep you out of prison. they didn't say do you

understand you will be deported. >> he was picked up by ice because of laws passed in 1996 that dramatically expanded the type of offenses that can trigger deportation. suddenly, shoplifting and marijuana possession became aggravated felonies. >> the law says that the attorney general shall detain that person while they're pending their removal proceedings. there's no discretion on the part of the judge to say let those people out. they can't get a bond to fight their case, you know, no matter what the amount of bond, they can't get a bond. >> attorney jodie good win has defended dozens of immigrants under mandatory detention in south texas. >> is it unusual for them to use mandatory detention? >> no, they use it all the time. all the time. all the time. >> today, nearly two thirds of those in ice custody are

held without bond. >> i don't understand why i'm detained here longer than what i was actually convicted for, you know, because i was on probation, and before, for four years, i haven't been a threat to society and suddenly on mandatory detention now. >> to them, he is profit. that's why he's been detained. that's why he's not home with me. he could be at home waiting. we could have been waiting this out for 10 months together. >> he had been checking in with his probation officer every month, owned a home, paid taxes and had just gotten his green card. when we spoke to him, he had been in piers a. ll for nearly a year. >> prison, you can have contact visit, we only see through glass, about that thick of glass, you know. sometimes, me and hope, she

would put her hand on the glass and i would knock so she could feel me knocking and she would do the same. >> days after this conversation, we heard good news. he was unexpectedly release and deportation canceled. we heard through ice that their agents recommended closing his case after hearing his story during our interview. >> watch more "faultlines" on demand or visit aljazeera.com/faultlines. >> sunday night. >> 140 world leaders will take the podium. >> get the full story. >> there is real disunity in the security council. >> about issues that impact your world. >> infectious diseases are a major threat to health. >> "the week ahead". sunday 8:30 eastern. only on al jazeera america.

>> we have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible. they wanted more agents at the border. we now have more boots on the ground on the southwest border than at any time in our history.

>> in an election year, the need to ramp up border enforcement has become a mantra among republicans and democrats alike. back in the rio grande valley, the men captured by border patrol have been taken to a processing center. if they don't have the right papers, they'll be deported, but first they'll be criminally prosecuted for entering the country illegally. >> every single person that gets caught is going to be prosecuted, no matter what instead of just picking them up processing them and sending them home. now we prosecute them, house them in jail for a while and then send them back to their home country. >> here at the border, individual stories of due process don't count for much. it's largely irrelevant whether these men grew up in the united states or traveled for weeks to

escape poverty or persecution. within hours, they'll all be labeled convicted criminals. >> the numbers, the huge numbers of prosecution are just skyrocketing. >> what's driving that? >> money. money. >> they become a number. for law enforcement, a success story. for the prison industry, a profit. ahead of the election, president obama promised a transformation of immigration policy. the department of homeland security has become to accept applications from young, undocumented immigrants seek to go avoid deportation. for most, it's not enough. >> we believed that things were going to get better. unfortunately, that hasn't happened. >> obama has led the deportation of more people than any other single administration over the years. >> i want everyone to be able to

reach that dream and immigration reform is an economic imperative. >> these people just wanted a shot at the american dream, and who love this country. frankly, many of these folks have contributed so greatly to our communities. >> sometimes when i talk to immigration advocates, you know, they wish i could just by pass congress and change the law myself, but that's not how a democracy works. >> for those in the front lines of immigration enforcement, his words ring hollow. >> until everyone decides to speak with one solid voice and develop that needed lobby things aren't going to change, because on the other side, you have companies that are spending billions of dollars in lobbying to keep the laws the way they are. >> until our government does something to make our immigration laws more humane and more fair, then the kind of people that

we represent every day or that we hear about in immigrant communities are going to continue to suffer. >> that's a sad state of affairs when you put a dollar sign on humanity. >> monday. >> this is the place where 43 students were handed over to criminal organizations. >> a crime that shocked the world. >> the military is about a mile away. they say that they didn't hear anything. >> where are mexico's missing students? >> kidnappings keep going up human security is collapsing. >> "faultlines". al jazeera america's hard-hitting... >> today they will be arrested. >> ground-breaking... >> they're firing canisters of gas at us. >> award-winning investigative documentary series. "mexico's disappeared". monday, 10:00 eastern. only on al jazeera america.

this is techknow, a show about innovations that can save lives. we are going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity and we are doing it through unique ways. this is a show about science by scientists. let's check out our team of hardcore nerds. i am phil torres, an entymologist. from base can camp, we are on the scene after raging wildfire. the scientists who go directly