Biden vowed to reform immigration detention. Instead, private prisons benefited

A detainee transport van exits the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, a former prison repurposed as an immigration detention facility operated by the GEO Group under contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. July 27, 2023. REUTERS/Quinn Glabicki

PHILIPSBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - As a presidential candidate in 2020, Joe Biden pledged to end for-profit immigration detention, saying: "No business should profit from the suffering of desperate people fleeing violence."

The opportunity for action came early in the Democratic president's term, in May 2021, when a group of senior immigration officials launched an internal review of detention centers to decide which should be scaled back, reformed or closed.