Biden decides to end legal contracts with private prisons

WASHINGTON – President Biden on Tuesday signed executive orders to end Justice Department contracts with private prisons and to strengthen government enforcement of a law to combat discrimination in the housing market, as part of the new administration’s continued focus on racial equity.

Mr Biden has also signed orders that make it the policy of the federal government to “condemn and denounce” discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, who have been harassed since the spread of the pandemic. coronavirus from China to the United States and to strengthen government relations. and Native American tribes.

These measures are incremental parts of Mr. Biden’s broader push for racial equity – an initiative expected to be a centerpiece of his administration and which follows an executive order last week directing federal agencies to review policies aimed at eradicating systemic racism. The government’s effort is led by Susan E. Rice, who heads the Domestic Policy Council.

“I don’t promise that we can end it tomorrow, but I do promise you that we will continue to make progress in eliminating systemic racism,” Biden said before signing the orders. He added that “all branches of the White House and the federal government are going to be part of this effort.”

The Orders are a growing repudiation of President Donald J. Trump’s policies and attitudes toward race relations. In separate executive orders last week, Biden overturned a Trump administration ban on diversity training in federal agencies and disbanded a landmark Trump-created commission that released a report aimed at shaping more positive to the founders of the country, who were slavers.

In a conference call with reporters, a senior White House official described the Trump administration’s “heinous” Muslim ban and said some minority groups were being treated with “a profound disrespect on the part of political leaders and the White House ”.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, accused the Trump administration of exacerbating racial inequalities in health. “The steps taken by the previous administration, for all intents and purposes to destroy the Affordable Care Act, have not helped any American and certainly have not helped communities of color,” she said.

In the same briefing, Rice made it clear that the administration is taking a new direction in highlighting these disparities rather than ignoring them – and that appointing a woman of color to oversee the initiative is part of that approach. .

“Americans of color are infected and die from Covid at higher rates,” she said, noting that “40% of black-owned businesses were forced to close too much for good during the Covid crisis . “

A descendant of immigrants from Jamaica, Rice called herself a living embodiment of the American dream and noted that “investing in equity is good for economic growth” and “creates jobs for all Americans”.

One of the orders signed Tuesday calls on the Justice Department not to renew contracts with private prisons, reverting to a policy first adopted in the Obama administration, when Mr Biden was vice president, and that Mr. Trump canceled.

The ordinance does not end all government contracts with private prisons – administration officials have confirmed that it will not apply to other agencies, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is passing. contracts with private companies to detain thousands of undocumented immigrants.

“There is a broad consensus that our current system of mass incarceration imposes considerable costs and hardship on our society and communities and does not make us safer,” the order read. “To reduce levels of incarceration, we must reduce profit-based incarceration incentives by phasing out the federal government’s dependence on private criminal detention facilities.

The Housing Ordinance directs the Department of Housing and Urban Development to enforce the Fair Housing Act of 1968 more vigorously, which targets discrimination in buying a home. This includes asking the ministry to review actions Mr. Trump took that sought to weaken part of that enforcement. Last year, as part of Mr. Trump’s attempts to appeal to white suburban voters, the department canceled an Obama-era program intended to address racial segregation in housing, known as the “ Affirmately Thread Housing Fair Housing ”.

“This represents a clear shift in direction that puts us back on track to comply with the Fair Housing Act,” said Julián Castro, who served as housing and urban development secretary under President Barack Obama. “This sends a very strong signal that it is a new day in fair housing and that HUD is going to get aggressive again. In some ways, this is the easiest part, but it’s a solid first step. “

Mr Castro said the Housing Department was still a long way off in terms of the number of staff it needed to enforce the Fair Housing Act and that non-profit groups across the country working on housing issues fair housing should receive federal funding and other resources. But given that the action came on Day 6 of the new administration, he said, it served as a “clear repudiation of Trump’s fear” of public housing swarming the white suburbs.

Mr. Biden’s Prison Order has received praise from the American Federation of Government Employees, the Prison Premises Council, which represents 30,000 federal prison workers across the country, and groups working to reduce the mass incarceration of blacks and other Americans.

“Eliminating the use of for-profit prisons is just a first step,” said Holly Harris, executive director of Justice Action Network, a bipartisan organization working on criminal justice – but a step with implications. beyond the small percentage of federal prisoners who are held in private prisons. “Everyone misses that they are a big obstacle to reform because they give millions to the elected officials who draft our criminal law.”

Ms Harris, who said she was a Republican, added that she “was doing the Democratic administration a little favor and applauding this first step.”