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The Don Lemon Show

Cruelty for Profit? Inside ICE Prisons

The Don Lemon Show

18Hundred LLC.

News, Society & Culture

4.31.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Don sits down with journalist Nick Valencia to discuss his latest reporting from inside the private prisons being used to hold ICE detainees. The conversation dives into the growing role of for-profit detention centers, the conditions detainees are facing behind closed doors, and the massive financial incentives tied to expanded detention. From disease outbreaks to allegations of inadequate care, the reporting paints a disturbing picture of a system that prioritizes profit over humanity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Right, home from work, walk the dog, kids are back.

0:04.4

Mom!

0:05.0

Up the stairs for something.

0:07.8

Ugh, back down, no idea what I went up for.

0:12.0

Mom, what's for dinner?

0:13.6

Chop, sizzle, done.

0:17.1

Hello, fresh, can't slow life down, but it makes bringing everyone together around the table a whole lot easier.

0:23.6

So it's phones down, forks up.

0:25.6

Hello Fresh. Bring back dinner time.

0:27.6

Nick Valencia is here, an award-winning independent journalist, and he has a fascinating, groundbreaking new report out, where Nick describes the private detention

0:40.0

system as one where human beings become revenue, turning lives into line items, basically

0:45.4

focusing on ICE detentions and immigration lockup facilities.

0:51.4

Take us through this. Why did you do this, Nick, and what did you uncover? Well, people are the product. You know, that's what we uncovered is this is all a corporate America where we're not really citizens, it seems, we're consumers. And the moment we can't contribute to this country, we're tossed aside, right? We end up losing our homes. We're out in the streets, and I'm guilty of this. You don't even look people in the eye when they're out in the and you assume that when they're out there, it's their fault. This is the first in a three-part series.

1:13.2

We're focusing on private prisons, the expansion there where, you know, it's so evident, Don, that people are the product. We all see the shaky cell phone videos. We don't know really what happens after the camera turns off, though. And that's when the meter literally starts running. And in this first of three-part

1:28.6

series for Corruption Inc. Therein Media, I investigated private prisons. And we learned $35,000 is the

1:35.0

price tag per month, per day, per person, per bed. And that's what these private prison companies,

1:41.3

like Geo Group and Core Civic. That's what they're making in ICE detention. They're getting rich.

1:46.0

Yeah. Let's look at some of your report.

1:48.4

We've all seen the videos by now, the shaky cell phone footage, the agents in plain

1:56.4

clothes. A person is grabbed, handcuffed, and put in the back of an unmarked vehicle. And then the video ends. But that's when the real story begins.

2:04.6

The moment that door slammed shut, the meter starts running, not metaphorically, literally.

2:09.6

And that industry runs on human beings. Every day they stay locked up, the meter keeps running.

...

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