Thread: Suffolk sheriff orders US agency to remove immigrant detaine

Suffolk sheriff orders US agency to remove immigrant detainees from jail
August 19, 2010 07:46 PM

By Maria Sacchetti, Globe staff

The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department has ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remove all immigrant detainees from a Boston jail by Oct. 12, accusing the federal agency of a “staggering lack of communication and respect,â€

Andrea Cabral U-turns in dustup over housing aliens
By Laura Crimaldi
Saturday, August 21, 2010 - Updated 44 minutes ago
(7) Comments

Suffolk Sheriff Andrea Cabral backed off her threat to stop housing illegal aliens in her jail, while a top lawmaker said the state won’t pony up more money to cover the millions she would lose in federal immigration fees.

“How can you turn down $8 million in (annual) federal income?â€

Suffolk sheriff to meet with ICE
US wants to keep detainees in Hub
ANDREA J. CABRAL

By Shelley Murphy
Globe Staff / August 21, 2010

Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral said yesterday that US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has asked her to reconsider her decision to stop housing immigrant detainees at a Boston jail. She said she plans to huddle with federal authorities in a bid to resolve her complaints of a serious breakdown in communications with the agency.

“Sometimes you have to be tough just to get somebody’s attention,’’ said Cabral, whose general counsel sent a scathing later to ICE last week, warning officials to remove the immigrants being held at the House of Correction at South Bay in Roxbury by Oct. 12 because the federal agency routinely failed to share information with the sheriff’s office that involved its handling of detainees.

“They want us to sit down and have a conversation, and I never say no to that,’’ Cabral said in a telephone interview. “Perhaps we can resolve outstanding issues. If that can’t happen, we’ll go forward as planned.’’

Cabral complained that ICE failed to provide copies of complaints from detainees, findings by ICE following investigations of those complaints, and audit reports on jail practices. She also said that ICE did not give her office a report that faulted its handling of a detainee who died until after the report was released to the news media.

In the Aug. 13 letter notifying ICE of plans to terminate a seven-year-old contract to house the detainees, James M. Davin, general counsel for Cabral’s office, said they had encountered “a staggering lack of communication and respect from representatives of your agency.’’

He also complained that ICE had failed to negotiate with Cabral’s office since it made a request in January 2009 for an increase in the $90 a day it pays the sheriff’s office to house each detainee. That is the rate it has paid since the jail began housing detainees in 2003.

A spokesman for ICE declined to comment yesterday on Cabral’s complaints or efforts to mend the rift and keep the immigrants at the Boston jail. He released a statement saying ICE was reviewing the letter and “will offer a direct response’’ to Cabral’s office.

Cabral and two other Massachusetts sheriffs said yesterday that the millions of dollars they get from the federal government to house immigrants facing deportation or other immigration proceedings are a boon to their budgets. Cabral said her office was paid about $8 million last year to house up to 260 immigrant detainees at a time, but it also cost just over $6 million to care for them. She acknowledged that the federal dollars helped her budget, because it meant the state had to kick in that much less to her office.

The contract also allowed Cabral to generate revenue from a building that had been empty before the federal detainees were moved in. Its open-floor plan made it unsuitable to house higher-security prison inmates. But Cabral said her contract with ICE “was never about how many people I can get here and what is the reimbursement rate.’’

She said she does not want to characterize her problems with ICE as “some sort of interagency feud,’’ but said the agency’s failure to share information with her staff has affected her ability to properly run the jail.

“It is not OK to have a partner in the detention of any group of people where there is limited communication and a lack of information sharing,’’ Cabral said.

The vast majority of immigrant detainees in New England are held in four Massachusetts jails, in Plymouth, Bristol, Suffolk, and Franklin counties.

Plymouth Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald Jr. and Bristol Sheriff Thomas Hodgson said yesterday that they have a good relationship with ICE and have no problems receiving information from the agency.

“They have shared audits and inmate complaints,’’ said McDonald, who received $13 million from the federal government last year and houses 292 immigrant detainees for ICE and another 124 pretrial detainees for the US Marshals Service. “If shortcomings or issues were found, they notified us in a timely manner.’’

But McDonald said he understood why Cabral would be angry if she failed to promptly receive an ICE report that faulted her office for waiting too long to provide medical care to an immigrant detainee who died in October and then learned of it from news accounts.

Hodgson, who was paid $7.9 million last year to house an average of 220 immigrant detainees each day, said: “This is an important initiative because it saves the taxpayers federal tax dollars. They’d have to ship some of them to Texas and other places, and that’s costly.’’

Hodgson said he renegotiated a contract with ICE, which now pays him $98 a day per detainee. McDonald said he has been reimbursed $93.82 a day for each detainee since October 2008.

www.boston.com

Sheriff tells US to move detainees

Rips federal agency for ‘lack of respect’; wants immigrants out in 60 days

By Maria Sacchetti
Globe Staff / August 20, 2010

The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department has ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remove all immigrant detainees from a Boston jail by Oct. 12, accusing the agency of a “staggering lack of communication and respect,’’ in a letter sent last week.


The letter accused ICE of failing to provide the sheriff’s office with audit reports, information about detainees’ complaints, and a report on a detainee’s death last year before it was released to the news media. Pedro Tavarez, a Dominican national facing deportation, died at age 49, and the federal investigation last month faulted Suffolk officials for waiting too long to take him to the hospital.

Suffolk’s letter also complained that ICE had failed to grant the jail’s request for an increase in the amount the agency reimburses it for housing federal detainees.

The harshly worded letter, obtained by the Globe, marked a turnabout for Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral’s office. Last year, she called the immigration contract “a lifesaver for my budget,’’ bringing in about $10 million a year in federal funding to house about 300 detainees a day in one of the largest immigrant detention centers in the Boston area.

The letter terminates Suffolk’s seven-year-old contract with ICE and gives it 60 days to remove all detainees. The immigrants are held at the House of Correction at South Bay in Roxbury to await deportation or other immigration proceedings.

Tensions have risen between the agencies in recent weeks over contract negotiations, with Suffolk pushing for more than the $90 a person per day that the jail receives to house detainees, according to a copy of the Aug. 13 letter written by Suffolk attorney James M. Davin. Suffolk did not specify a new rate in the letter but said they had waited for months for a response.

“The process of negotiating a modification to this daily rate has been exasperating in the extreme,’’ he wrote.

ICE spokesman Brian P. Hale confirmed that the agency has received the letter and is reviewing it.

“We remain committed to reforming the nation’s civil detention system and will continue to work closely with our state and local partners to ensure that these necessary reform measures are successfully implemented,’’ Hale said in a statement.

The conflict between the two agencies surprised lawyers who have watched the jail closely. They expressed concern that if the immigrant detainees are moved out, they could be relocated to far-flung facilities with less access to relatives or their lawyers.

“A lot of families who have detained people in Boston are going to be upset,’’ said Laura Rótolo, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

Cabral and her spokesman, Peter Van Delft, did not respond to requests for comment yesterday. The sheriff has also been in the news this week because of the apparent suicide Sunday of accused Craigslist killer Philip Markoff in the Nashua Street Jail, which she also oversees.

Until now, Cabral has portrayed her relationship with ICE as one that was mutually beneficial. The House of Correction is convenient to reaching the immigration court and Logan International Airport, for deportations. In addition, the federal contract, first signed in 2003, was a significant boost to Cabral’s budget. The contract allowed her to fill a $20 million building that had been empty because design flaws made it inappropriate for criminals.

But in last week’s letter, Davin outlined a litany of complaints. He expressed frustration with the slow pace of contract negotiations, saying the federal agency was paying Suffolk at a rate that was more than seven years old while costs of running Building 8, the facility at South Bay, had “risen significantly.

In addition, a “longstanding point of contention’’ has been ICE’s alleged failure to provide Suffolk with federal audit results. The jail automatically receives the results of state audits.

The letter also accused ICE of “chronic resistance’’ when dealing with detainees’ complaints about their incarceration. Davin said the agency has generally refused to provide Suffolk with copies of detainees’ complaints and “inexplicably failed’’ to provide copies of completed investigations despite requests.

“The federal investigation into detainee Pedro Tavarez’ October 2009 death at a Boston hospital is the most recent example of your agency’s baffling disregard for this department and its work,’’ he wrote.

Robert Sinsheimer, the lawyer for Tavarez’s estate, said the dispute over the investigation into his death amounted to a “blame game.’’

“As far as we’re concerned, they’re both at fault,’’ he said.

Despite the criticism of ICE, Davin’s letter expressed praise for local officials, including Bruce Chadbourne, who is in charge of detention and removal operations locally, saying he “does his job well.’’ The letter also reminded ICE that it had given Suffolk glowing reviews in the past and considered them a model for other detention centers.

Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @mariasacchetti.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... detainees/

Cabral said her office was paid about $8 million last year to house up to 260 immigrant detainees at a time, but it also cost just over $6 million to care for them

Well, it seems that 8 million minus 6 million leaves a 2 million profit. Am I missing something here or is a 25% profit margin not good enough in todays economy. That profit seems to be covering a lot of local imate arrest expenses. That means her actual cost per federal imate is $67.50 per day which is really good.

2 million divided by $67.50 means that it also covers for local arrest covers the annual cost of 81 imates before the state and county have to spend any money.

It cost $24,637.50 annually to house one imate for a year.


In Maricopa County Arizona If suspected violators are arrested, booking them into county jails on a state misdemeanor charge will come at a cost. In Maricopa County, for example, every arresting agency has to pay $192 to book misdemeanor suspects into county jail and $72 a day to house each suspect.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... z0xTtlaciY