Firm Research
Abstract
When firms seek to work with the government, they need to have a specific plan in mind to explain how they can fulfill the things that the government is looking for. With this in mind, there is one area in federal contracting right now where there may be an opportunity for a company to step in and provide more of what the government needs. That area is in immigration enforcement and control. The current detention centers are woefully incapable of providing the sort of environment that can allow the federal government to show the public that it is enforcing immigration laws without being inhumane. With this in mind, this paper represents a proposal for a business that would be more humane and would provide more transparency. It lays out the plans for a detention facility that actually treats detainees like human beings by providing them with a host of services that are needed to ensure their safety and also their mental health.
Firm Research
Firm Description
The federal government right now is running into major political and public relations problems because of the way in which it has been handling immigrant families (Menjivar et al., 2018). This is especially true with the images of children who have been held in cages and have not been allowed to have much adult interaction at all (Hernandez et al., 2018). There have, of course, been reports that the US has been housing people in former Wal-Mart stores and other facilities that are not appropriate for detention. With this in mind, our company is designed to help fix this problem.
Our company does not necessarily believe that it is right to detain children, or families, that are trying to cross the border to seek a better life. However, seeing that detention center companies with a lack of competence are seemingly unable to fulfill their duties and functions, the goal of the organization is to fix that part of the problem by being humane in the treatment of these people who are struggling. With this in mind, the company’s core function and purpose is to provide detention center services on a contract basis with the federal government. The company seeks out locations that will be appropriate for this function. Once it finds those locations, it outfits the location with a detention center that is actually humane toward people who are there. Included are services for children, including places where they can play and some group classes to ensure they are still learning. There are family rooms where families can have privacy. On top of that, our organization provides training to people working in the facility. Our trained employees are not designed to be harsh or penal toward immigrants in these situations. Rather, our employees are trained to be compassionate, and to understand that their core purpose is to execute the detention function with as few negative consequences as possible.
The mission and values of the company come down to compassion toward people and professionalism in dealing with the outside world. One of the competencies that we offer that may be attractive to the federal government is the provision of tours and other media-related services. At current, the administration is facing significant problems because of the perception that it does not want to allow media into facilities. Even a US senator was denied entry in the beginning, which really began the entire firestorm against the family separation policy. With this in mind, it is apparent that the existing contractors working with the federal government are not doing nearly a good enough job providing PR services so that the federal government does not have to be ashamed of what it is doing. It is much better when the federal government can be proud of the job that it is doing and proud of how it is treating people who are in a tough situation. By providing trained employees who know how to work with media and provide tours of the facility, we will usher in much more openness for the project and take some of the heat off of the government for the past handling of the situation.
With this in mind, we will demonstrate that one of our core values is transparency. With this in mind, the idea is that we truly have nothing to hide. We are right there, more than willing to do everything in our power to be effective but without having to hide. This is true because we will spend much more time and energy training our employees to actually do their jobs well. This will lead to better outcomes when protests and the like begin to happen. Our employees will be trained on how to handle these, because we believe it is inevitable that people will continue to protest the current policies on immigration of the existing administration.
Business Model Considerations
Our business model is relatively simple. We will plan to operate five different detention facilities that house families who are crossing the border. These detention centers will be located in proximity to the border with Mexico, mostly in Texas. They will be located close enough that the people who are caught can be transported quickly and with little cost. There will be a single contract with the federal government that covers all five of these facilities.
The dynamics of the contract will be somewhat more complex. The contract will feature a flat fee for operating the facility. This in turn will allow us to cover various costs required to handle the functions. For instance, we will have to hire the right employees, train them according to the competencies we are offering, and ensure that we have enough staffing. In most cases, the facilities will have roughly 100 employees each, working in different capacities. These will include detention center security, social workers, administrators, media specialists, and more. On top of that, the contracted amount will allow for the retro-fitting of the facility in such a way that it meets the needs of the detention center’s prisoners.
The detention centers will run as long as they are needed, but the contracts will be renewed on a year to year basis. If additional centers are needed beyond the five that have been planned, then the federal government will need to contract for more to be constructed and maintained. Each center included in the contract will be worth $25 million annually. This means that the total amount of the contract will be $125 million. This will include all costs to the federal government, and it will then be the company’s job to find a way to complete the tasks within that number. We believe this will provide us with the opportunity to turn a profit while also providing the federal government with a good deal. Given the amount of money that is being poured into border security through the Department of Homeland Security, this is a feasible number for the government, assuming it is forthright in its goals about trying to provide disincentives to crossing the border for these families.
Request for Proposal Information Needed
The first step for the company, in the first week, is to come up with an accurate estimate on the costs. The company will need to come up with its direct costs as well as the sub-contracted costs that it will incur. These estimates need to be as accurate as possible to allow the federal government to know what it is getting for its money.
The Statement of Work will need to be prepared in week two and week three. Because this is the part of the proposal that is most important, it will need to be given much more time. This will require us to sit down and put specific procedures on paper, especially in regard to safety. If the goal of the detention center in the government’s eyes is to ensure that people are safe and do not get away, we will show how our company can achieve this.
The deliveries and performance section is also important. During the last week, we will need to come up with methods to demonstrate how the company is going to supply its services. We will need to demonstrate how the government will know that it has received the proper services so that it can assess the contract (Davison & McCue, 2015).
References
Davison, B., & McCue, C. (2015). Monitoring and Evaluating Contracts. In Government Contracting (pp. 134-152). Routledge.
Hernández, D., Eason, J. M., Goldsmith, P. R., Abel, R. D., & McNeely, A. (2018). Punitive Capacity, Health, and Standards in US Immigrant Detention. Routledge Handbook on Immigration and Crime.
Menjívar, C., Gómez Cervantes, A., & Alvord, D. (2018). The expansion of “crimmigration,” mass detention, and deportation. Sociology Compass, 12(4), e12573.
