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ICE detention can come with costs as well as benefits
By Daniel Jackson
February 3, 2008 - 7:07PM
http://www.gastongazette.com/news/
State Rep. Wil Neumann said he has financing and a development team
lined up to build an immigration detention center in Gaston County ,
if the proposed facility is approved.
But he may have to get in line.
Already private building consultants and developers from other parts
of the country are calling to express an interest in building the
facility, said County Manager Jan Winters.
“We've had a lot of calls from consultants, but there is a lot more
we have to figure out before we start building,” Winters said. If it
is the 1,500 bed facility that's been bantered about, that's an
injection of an awful lot of money into this local economy.”
The U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has
tapped Gaston County as a potential site for an ICE detention center
that could house as many as 1,500 detainees and employ hundreds
locally. Federal officials were looking at Mecklenburg County, but
switched their sights to Gaston County .
County officials say they know little about the proposed project, but
they are in contact with ICE, Winters said.
Privately built, publicly managed
Neumann, R-Gaston, said he is approaching the project as a private
developer with Hawkeye Enterprises, LLC. If approved, Neumann said
he'd build the facility and then lease it back to the county. The
Gaston County Sheriff's Office would manage the facility and pay the
lease, using federal dollars, Neumann said.
Both Neumann and Winters said the proposed detention center would
benefit the county with jobs and spending at a time when the nation
appears on the verge — or perhaps already in the grips — of
recession.
“We've got to recruit industry,” Neumann said. “I'm working
on this
as a private developer, trying to bring jobs to Gaston County . With
these projects, time is always of the essence. … They don't (ICE
doesn't) ever go in and build them.”
According to its Web site, ICE operates about 16 detention and
processing centers nationwide. But there are groups locally that
oppose the detention center and question if the project would truly
be good for Gaston County's economy in the long term.
Could ‘prison' image hurt economy?
All ICE detention centers are under close scrutiny and some have been
criticized for the conditions of incarceration, including detainee
abuse, inadequate medical care, poor access to legal counsel, and
detainees and political refugees being locked up for months and years
without due process.
If the facility comes with an image problem, it could hurt the
county's efforts at industrial recruitment and economic development
long-term, according to Father Les Schmidt, a Catholic priest and
consultant with Grassroots Leadership. The Charlotte-based non-profit
is opposed to prisons being managed by private operators like
Corrections Corporation of America , which also manages detention
facilities for ICE in other states.
“The kind of corporations and other businesses that Gaston County
most wants to attract aren't going to look kindly on the idea of
locating in a prison county,” Schmidt said in a prepared statement.
In North Carolina, state law requires that the county sheriff manage
all pre-trial jails and detention centers.
Profiting from detainees
Winters and Neumann said a lot of the problems at other facilities
have arisen out of poor conditions in the facilities and mistreatment
of detainees. Those problems haven't been an issue at the Gaston
County Jail under Cloninger's watch, they said.
Schmidt said he's heard good things about Cloninger, but he warned
Gaston County that a system that treats illegal immigrants like
“units of profit” could lead to a denial of their human dignity.
The
county would receive funding from the federal government based on the
number of detainees housed in the jail.
Rebecca Headen, a spokeswoman with the American Civil Liberties Union
of North Carolina , said racial profiling is already an issue.
Sometimes people are detained for prolonged periods of time, even if
they aren't a danger or a flight risk. Some detainees turn out to
have legal status, she said.
“When these things are built, there is a tendency to fill them up,”
Headen said. “People hear about jobs and buying power but not so much
about the baggage.”
Headen said the ACLU promotes alternatives to detention, when
appropriate, including electronic monitoring or release on a secured
bond.
Officials praise Gaston jail
Winters said Gaston County officials plan to visit detention
facilities in other parts of the country to learn more about similar
projects and find out if the project is right for Gaston County .
At this point, the county doesn't even know how large the facility
would be or where it would be located. There is room for expansion of
the county jail, but Winters and Cloninger said they aren't sure that
site would work.
Local leaders can't decide how the federal government chooses to deal
with illegal immigrants, Winters said. The county's responsibility in
taking on the detention center would be to manage it properly and
take adequate care of detainees.
“We haven't had issues associated with operation of that jail and
we're real proud of that,” Winters said. “Any jail operation
needs to
withstand scrutiny. You've got control over other peoples' lives,
you
better be managing it properly.”
Neumann said the state should better enforce immigration laws. In
Gaston County , voters are concerned about immigration issues and
opposition to the facility would likely come from outside of the
area, Neumann said.
“I still believe you'd have to import someone that would want to
demonstrate against it,” he said.
You can reach Daniel Jackson at (704) 869-1833 . |
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