I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Does GOP gubernatorial candidate Allen Weh stand to make more money from a crackdown on immigration? That’s what author Jeffrey Kaye suggests this week on Huffington Post. The federal government contracts with Weh’s company, CSI Aviation, to fly detainees back to their home countries.
Weh trails Republican opponent Susana Martinez in recent polls of the upcoming Republican gubernatorial primary by double digits.
Weh has funded a significant chunk of his campaign — he has loaned his campaign $1.6 million according to the most recent campaign finance reports.
From The Huffington Post report:
Weh’s CSI Aviation, which brokers charter flight packages, has benefited from the U.S. government’s increased privatization of its detention and deportation operations. CSI Aviation received contracts worth more than $218 million over the past five years, according to federal records. The contracts were awarded by ICE, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the office within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security responsible for deportations. On any given day, CSI Aviation has six planes in the air transporting illegal immigrants for ICE as well as for the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS) operated by the U.S. Marshall’s Service. It also arranges deportation flights around the world, mostly to Central America.
According to the story, the company is paid up to “$700 per passenger for flights within the Americas” and “nearly 20 times as much” for those deported to areas outside of the Americas.
This money wasn’t just from under George W. Bush’s administration (though CSI Aviation’s “contracts skyrocketed during Bush presidency.”) The Huffington Post story mentioned a contract that was under the Barack Obama administration, “a $527,300 contract with ICE for a flight providing ‘relocation services’ to Cape Verde, Lebanon, and Iraq.”
The Huffington Post concludes, “The one certain effect of immigration crackdowns will be to benefit certain entrepreneurs–such as Allen Weh.”
