Booker outlines plan to "virtually eliminate immigrant detention" through executive order

Specifically, Booker’s campaign said in a written summary of his proposal that he would shut down “inhumane facilities and require all facilities to meet high standards,” and “phase out contracting with private prison facilities and county or local prisons.”

That proposal alarmed some conservatives. Dan Cadman, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official and fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies think tank, told Fox News that Democrats wanted to “render it impossible for the government to detain anyone, anywhere, anytime in any facilities.”

Private detention centers, he said, often were cheaper and more efficient than their government-run counterparts.