Immigration agency outsources food service at detention centers

Immigration agency outsources food service at detention centers

By Jonathan Marino
jmarino@govexec.com
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau has decided to hire an Alaska Native corporation to take over detention center food service work currently performed by dozens of federal employees.

Fifty-six ICE food service employees at detention centers in Miami; Los Angeles; Los Fresnos and El Paso, Texas; Florence, Ariz.; and El Centro, Calif., will be replaced by ANC workers, according to a notice posted earlier this month on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site. The decision was made after the agency conducted a streamlined public-private job competition, in which officials decided after completing market research that it would be best to outsource the work.

Officials then announced in the notice early this month that, rather than soliciting proposals from all interested private sector companies, they would give the work to an Alaska Native firm. These companies are considered disadvantaged and allowed to bypass some of the normal competitive procedures required to win federal contracts.

The White House has encouraged agencies to let contractors bid on federal work considered commercial in nature, with the goal of improving efficiency and saving money. But sources familiar with ICE's recent streamlined competition for food services work said the decision to go with an Alaska Native company undermines the premise of the effort.

"ICE is not required to even show that this type of contractor is cheaper or better than federal employees, so the results of the ... competition don't matter, much less the way it was conducted," said one person at the Homeland Security Department, who spoke under the condition of anonymity. ICE is part of DHS.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0207/022607j1.htm

icky cheap "food" will be the result. :(

decreased service and very little, if any, accountability.

The GOP is destroying the nation and making life hell for people who really do work in public service TO SERVE THE PUBLIC.

These are their people, and they have a responsibility for them.

I am fully in support of allowing a managed immigration system that holds all parties accountable for the transition from one side of the border to the other as seasonal interests affect the individuals involved. With all economic ramifications taken into consideration and made public.

I cannot support the unfettered crossing of borders with no responsibility from the country the individual is a citizen of.

I am not advocating sending the worker back to his land of origin. Just that a person's land of origin be responsible for that person's well being, and the cost being imposed on those countries these persons have decided move to being reimburse in full.

Mexico will guard their own borders at that point.