In an apparent protest over the loosened border security measures of the Biden administration, an Ohio Sheriff terminated his county jail’s contract to house U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees.
“With the crisis at the border getting worse, it concerns me that the feds will ship detainees to my facility, then release them to the streets of my community under some technicality,” Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said.
For 18 years, the Butler County Jail had a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to house illegal aliens while they awaited immigration hearings.
But that will no longer be the arrangement, according to Jones.
“We operate an efficient correctional facility and federal officials continue to add unreasonable and cost prohibitive mandates to hold these illegal immigrants,” he said. “It’s better to just end this arrangement now, than to let that happen.”
“They gotta house them somewhere, but they’re not going to house them here. I’m not going to drink the Kool-Aid,” he added.
ICE currently has 50 detainees at the jail, and the Sheriff has demanded that they be removed from his custody in the next 60 days.
Jones has been speaking out against the Biden administration’s relaxed border security procedures for months.
A March 10 press release from the Sheriff’s office said the following:
Sheriff Richard K. Jones has growing concerns with the influx of illegal immigrants entering the United States under the current Administration. The numbers of illegal immigrants crossing the border are rising at staggering rates. With this comes; illegal drugs, infectious diseases, and dangerous criminals. This will not only burden our hospitals, jails and schools but our law enforcement working the streets as well.
“This problem is not exclusive to states near the border. It’s coming to your community. So, this is just not a border crisis, this is an American crisis,” Jones said at the time.
Of the notable changes in immigration police since Biden took office was the forty-sixth president’s end to the “Remain in Mexico” policy implemented by former President Donald J. Trump.
That policy forced migrants to wait in Mexico, not the United States, until their scheduled immigration hearing in front of a judge. It prevented illegal aliens from being released into the streets in the United States, many of whom would never appear at their immigration hearings. It also prevented overcrowding of jails like Butler County’s, and de-incentivized illegal aliens from attempting to cross the border unless they were legitimately seeking asylum.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
