During the Central American immigration crisis of 2014, the Obama administration bypassed standard bidding processes in order to quickly agree to a $1 billion contract with the nation's largest prison company for a detention center in Texas for women and children seeking asylum.

The four-year contract with Corrections Corporation of America is unusual because the government pays the company a fixed amount of $20 million per month. The contract assumes that the center is 100 percent full, whereas typical detention contracts given out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fluctuate based on the percentage of beds occupied, according to a report from The Washington Post.

"For the most part, what I see is a very expensive incarceration scheme," California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House's immigration and border security subcommittee, told the Post. "It's costly to the taxpayers and achieves almost nothing, other than trauma to already traumatized individuals."

The result of the federal government's contract with CCA is the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, a sprawling 2,400-bed detention center that opened in December 2014. According to the Post, the center has only been half full in recent months, sparking criticism of the expensive contract.

The government spends between $60 to $85 per detainee per day at more than 200 non-family immigration detention sites, according to an ICE document. When the South Texas Family Residential Center is completely full, the government spends $285 per detainee per day, according to an analysis by the Post. When the center is only half full, the government spends $570, and so on.

The South Texas Family Residential Center has been just half full in recent months, prompting criticism of the government's contract with the company that operates it. (Ilana Panich-Linsman / The Washington Post)

The Obama administration also contracted with a different company under similar terms to build a 532-bed detention center in Karnes City in South Texas.

"This is the arrangement of a no-bid contract by twisting and distorting the procurement process past recognition," said Charles Tiefer, a University of Baltimore law professor, former solicitor and deputy general counsel of the U.S. House, who analyzed the deal for the Post.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told the Post that daily costs to detain children are higher, because the government is obligated to provide things such as education and medicine for nursing mothers.

Even though CCA operates more 70 facilities across the U.S., financial documents obtained by the Post show the South Texas Family Residential Center provided 14 percent of the company's revenue last year. The company did not comment on how much it cost to operate the center.

"CCA is committed to treating all individuals in our care with the dignity and respect they deserve while they have due process before immigration courts," the company said in a statement to the Post. "Responding to pressing challenges such [as] this — and doing so in a way that can flexibly meet the government's changing needs — is a role that CCA has played for federal immigration partners for more than 30 years."

According to the Post's report, there were fewer than 100 beds for family detention in the U.S. in the initial years of the Obama administration. But by the end of 2014, there were plans for more than 3,000.

That dramatic rise reflects the Obama administration's desire to deter potential asylum-seekers — primarily from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, where the drug trade has led to astounding murder rates and other violence — from traveling to the United States.

Laura Lichter, a Denver immigration and asylum attorney, told the Post that pressure placed on the Obama administration has been a huge boon to private detention companies.

"This was about the best thing that could happen to private detention since sliced bread," Lichter said.

The Post reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are currently investigating more cost-effective solutions to the country's immigration problems. One such measure proposed by critics of the current system is ankle monitors, which would track asylum-seekers in the U.S. and cost only a few dollars per day.