This is from 09/2011, if it is as duplicate, please remove.

It seems that everyone, including local governments are making money on illegals.

Weber refutes ICE audit By Tim Gurrister
Standard-Examiner staff
Sun, 09/25/2011 - 5:42am

(Mod Edit/ RB)

..OGDEN --- The Weber County Sheriff's Office is lashing out at federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement audits which resulted in the removal of 32 ICE detainees from the jail this summer.

Jail officials were told a week ago by the state ICE director that the requirements outlined in the audit reports were non-negotiable.

ICE mandates their detainees don't undergo strip searches, don't have to pay the $10 copays for medical treatment, can't have their mail read like other inmates and deserve their own barbershop.

Sheriff's officials say they can't, and won't, comply with such directives for the small group of 30 to 60 inmates held at any given time at the jail that routinely houses almost 900.

"That's disparate treatment," Sheriff Terry Thompson said. "That gets around immediately. The other inmates resent it. That gets staff hurt. That gets inmates hurt."

Undersheriff Kevin McCleod called the requirements a "social club" treatment for the detainees.

"They don't know the first thing about running a jail," Chief Deputy Klint Anderson added as the officials sat down to air their grievances with the ICE audits.

"To spin this as not passing an inspection is baloney," McCleod said. "We've been good for 10 years (with ICE audits). Now there's a chance in ideology in Washington D.C. and we got crapped on."

Efforts to reach ICE officials for Utah in Salt Lake City, including director Steve Branch, were unsuccessful, Officials in administration, the legal counsel's office, investigations and other divisions were unavailable because the office is in the middle of moving.

The ICE standards far exceed those of the Utah Sheriff's Association, which the jail follows, and which mirror those of the National Sheriff's Association, according to WCSO.

Losing the detainees could cost the jail as much as $1.5 million a year. The sheriff's officials say it will be more like an $800,000 hit to their budget. ICE pays $55 a day per detainee for their stay in the Weber jail.

The shortfall will be covered with belt-tightening and reduction in staff through attrition, no layoffs, the sheriff's officials say. In addition, the jail will seek to take additional inmates from other contracted agencies who lease beds.

Thompson said the ICE standards would leave his jail "far less secure and far less safe." He said a separate facility would have to be built to meet all the standards.

The barber shop is the most absurd standard, the officials said.

ICE wants the detainee barbershop in a separate, single-use room with "hot water capable of a constant flow between 105 degrees and 120 degrees."

All that just for the 30-60 ice detainees, they said. Inmates currently get their haircuts in their cells or hallways

The ICE detainees -- picked up on criminal offenses and then found upon booking at the jail to be illegal immigrants -- are likely the smallest category of prisoners in the jail. The jail officials pointed to the 150 or more prisoners booked by U.S. marshals under the same contract as ICE.

The marshals' audits have all been favorable over the years, as have the ICE inspections until this year, they point out.

Weber was one of only three counties in the state housing ICE detainees long-term in their jail, the others being Utah and Washington. ICE now pays to shuttle its Northern Utah detainees from the Utah County Jail to Ogden and points north for court hearings.

Some of the ICE-discovered deficiencies will be remedied, officials said, such as holding fire drills monthly instead of quarterly.



http://www.standard.net/stories/2011/09 ... -ice-audit