ICE contracts help some rural jails shore up their budgets, but the money comes with strings attached

Ozark County Jail, Mo., transports and temporarily holds
detainees for ICE. (Photo by Jesse Bogan, Marshall Project)

Small, rural law enforcement offices hurting for money are signing up for Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts, but the money to assist with national mass deportation efforts comes with added oversight and risks.

Sheriff Cass Martin from Ozark County, Missouri, "sees his prayers answered in a new contract with ICE that could boost his $1.1 million annual budget," reports Jesse Bogan of the Missouri Independent. "An enormous ramp-up in detention capacity is underway. New contracts are being negotiated. . . . Ozark County is already reaping the benefits by raising wages and hiring for new positions in law enforcement."

Martin saw the ICE contract as a possible answer to his budgeting shortfall. He told Bogan, “We were really hurting. The day after the inauguration, a federal inspector showed up here at the jail wanting to look at everything throughout the facility."

Ozark County is one example of how a small, rural law enforcement office can become an effective "arm" for ICE. "They’ve made 525-mile runs from Ozark County to the federal building in St. Louis, down to the Greene County Jail in southwest Missouri, then back home," Bogan adds. "They’ve picked up detainees 325 miles away in Oklahoma and taken them to the tarmac at Kansas City International Airport."

But the added work and money have strings attached. ICE "detention and transportation contracts come with much more scrutiny and oversight than typical jail work, especially in Missouri, which doesn’t have statewide jail standards," Bogan reports. "Still, ICE reported that eight detainees had died nationally while in custody this year, as of May 5, including one death in a rural Missouri jail."

At least in Ozark County, local input on ICE contracts has been minimal; however, local officials working on ICE details haven't broadcast their federal negotiations. "Just one [local resident] attended a recent county commissioner meeting," Bogan writes. "Two years’ worth of meeting minutes didn’t mention the ICE contract in detail. The county commissioner said he wanted to wait until federal money started coming in before listing projected revenue in the county’s $7 million annual budget."