The Douglas County sheriff’s proposal to rent Omaha-based jail space to the federal government for use as migrant detention appears to have hit a dead end.

Image

A majority of the Douglas County Board, which oversees the county jail as the Board of Corrections, issued a statement Friday objecting to the idea announced Thursday by Sheriff Aaron Hanson.

The statement by Commissioners Chris Rodgers, Jim Cavanaugh, Brian Fahey and Board Chair Roger Garcia offered several reasons for the rationale of the majority on the seven-member elected board.

Garcia previously rebuffed the idea of contracting jail space to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold detainees. If put to a vote, that majority would douse the possibility of such a county contract.

“We will not support any expansion of immigration detention at the Douglas County Jail,” the commissioners’ said in a statement urging instead the state’s federal delegation to work toward comprehensive immigration reform.

Financial benefit?

The four said their preferred approach “requires coalition-building and advocacy at the federal level, not contracts that perpetuate harm.” They said that “true humanitarian choice is not to detain mothers, fathers and workers” whom they described as “essential” to the local economy.

While the commissioners said they “fully support” holding violent and drug-trafficking criminals accountable,” they said 72 percent of ICE detainees nationally have no criminal history. “Detaining hardworking and law-abiding residents who have built lives and families here does not make us safer; it only deepens fear, trauma and economic loss across our communities.”

Image

They also questioned any financial benefit, saying the cost to house an inmate at the county jail is $220 per day, an amount they said exceeds the $175 per diem contract ICE currently pays nearby counties.

Hanson, in response, told the Nebraska Examiner that the county is in an “enviable position” to negotiate a better deal. He said the new revenue stream could be reinvested back into his department’s own trimmed budget, offer tax relief and enhanced public safety measures for county residents and potentially create a national model that could direct money to local immigrant communities.

He’s urged the County Board to put the idea to a public vote.

“This should be on an agenda in which people can come and voice their opinion pro or con, and ultimately elected leaders can do what we are supposed to do, make tough choices,” Hanson said.

A county agreement with ICE for detention, the sheriff said, would allow individuals arrested in the Omaha area to stay close to their families and the area’s “premier healthcare system, legal and support services.”

He cited the June 10 Omaha Glenn Valley Foods raid in which most of the nearly 80 undocumented workers detained were transported roughly four hours away to a North Platte jail in Lincoln County, which has a contract with ICE.

In an Oct. 7 memo to County Board members, Hanson said the county jail had space and was operating at a “historic low capacity.”

‘Deeply troubling’

But according to the director of Douglas County Corrections, Michael Myers, the county jail population has steadily increased since late last year. The total incarcerated population as of today is 1,101, up from 914 in December, Myers said in a statement from a county spokesperson.

Image

Projections, Myers said, show the county on pace to process roughly 1,500 more inmates this year compared to last year, when it booked 15,500 individuals.

Two legal centers that advocated for workers detained in the Omaha Glenn Valley immigration raid weighed in Friday on the ICE-Douglas County proposal, one calling it “deeply troubling.”

“Immigration detention should never be a business model,” said Roxana Cortes-Mills, legal director of the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement. “The Douglas County sheriff’s proposal to profit from detaining immigrants is deeply troubling, especially at a time when fear and uncertainty are already at an all-time high.”

Said Cortes-Mills, “Let’s be honest, this isn’t about access to health care or staying close to family and legal support. It’s about expanding detention in Nebraska and profiting from an administration intent on dehumanizing immigrants.”

She said CIRA attorneys would continue serving communities across the state “to uphold due process and dignity for all.”

Promote dialogue

American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, which also represents several Glenn Valley detainees, objected to what it called the “illusion” that closer ICE detention facilities would benefit immigrant families.

ACLU executive director Mindy Rush Chipman said that “trying to sprinkle in incentives of money and geographic closeness” is an effort to “hide the ball, so to speak, about what this would actually mean for our communities.”

She said if one asked ACLU’s Omaha clients, they’d likely say it would have been “easier” to have loved one detained closer than North Platte. She, however, doubts those families would support increased ICE detention space in their community.

ACLU believes heavier ICE presence and jail capacity would lead to increased likelihood of “unlawful detentions and liability to the county itself.”

“We all need to push back against the concept this is happening anyway, so we might as well get paid for it,” Rush Chipman said. “This is not good for our communities, no matter if you try to describe and disguise it.”

Hanson sees his proposal as humane for families and a “lucrative opportunity” for the county.

“The biggest thing I’m trying to promote here is dialogue,” he said. “Can we find a way to mitigate the thing that we can not control — federal detention?”