(Private) Prisons. Prisoners have no labor rights in the US and earn cents per hour making textiles, office furniture, military wire, id-tags, vests, etc. Private prison corporations contract out this labor to clients like the DoD, Wal-Mart, Costco, etc.
It creates an incentive for the prison industry to lobby for more prisons, tougher anti-crime laws, tougher border crossing penalties, longer sentences. The profits incentivize a total lack of addressing recidivism.
1 out of 4 prisoners in the world occupy a US prison (we account for what? 4-5% of the world's population?). Violent crimes have been trending down over 20 years, but prisoner population as a percentage is at an all time high due to tougher drug convictions.
Also, then there's huge factory farms, which are known to use migrants of questionable citizenship as laborers, and report them to the police when they complain.
I certainly wouldn't call illegal immigrants slaves. They generally speaking work under stolen identities and pay taxes for non-cash payment just like the rest of us. For those that do work strictly for cash, yes what you said does happen, but they are breaking the law to begin with by being illegal immigrants. The current US administration has made it a lot easier for said illegals to get less scetchy jobs via the DREAM act and the associated legal things.
The points you bring up about prisoners is interesting. I've always found the moral idea of a for-profit prison as reprehensible.
It creates an incentive for the prison industry to lobby for more prisons, tougher anti-crime laws, tougher border crossing penalties, longer sentences. The profits incentivize a total lack of addressing recidivism.
1 out of 4 prisoners in the world occupy a US prison (we account for what? 4-5% of the world's population?). Violent crimes have been trending down over 20 years, but prisoner population as a percentage is at an all time high due to tougher drug convictions.
Also, then there's huge factory farms, which are known to use migrants of questionable citizenship as laborers, and report them to the police when they complain.