Project Cornerstone and the Compromise of 1877

Ethan Graves explicitly links his motivation for Project Cornerstone to wanting to usher in a modern day Compromise of 1877 (also known as “The Corrupt Bargain”): a real bipartisan political deal that resolved a contested presidential election at the expense of post-Civil War safeguards that successfully protected Blacks in the post-antebellum South. This paved the way for Jim Crow.

·       The Compromise of 1877: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1877#:~:text=During%20the%20Reconstruction%20era%20of,the%20Republicans'%20ending%20military%20oversight.

Beyond the Compromise of 1877, Caleb Hughes and First Lady Priscilla Barnes’s bipartisan enthusiasm to enable the prison expansion in Project Cornerstone is rooted in the legacy of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, which was supported by both parties, dramatically accelerating mass incarceration along racial and economic lines. Its effects continue to define American criminal justice.

Finally, the Project Cornerstone scheme was written years before recent events but has since drawn direct parallels to documented federal efforts to dramatically expand private immigration detention infrastructure.

•       NPR: GEO Group — Private Prisons and ICE’s Close Ties

•       Brennan Center: Private Prison Companies’ Enormous Windfall — Who Stands to Gain as ICE Expands

•       ACLU: Privatized Immigration Detention

•       American Immigration Council: ICE Buys Warehouses for Immigration Detention