Which Minnesota Jails hold ICE inmates? And What's changed?

Not all jails have a contract with the Federal Government to house ICE inmates. Those Corrections Officers in those jails are going to be very busy for the foreseeable future.

ICE has agreements with the jails in Elk River in Sherburne County, Albert Lea in Freeborn County and Willmar in Kandiyohi County to use them as detention facilities for holding detainees. Full story CBS/WCCO.

People in the country illegally are housed in these facilities until they have a hearing and are released or deported. These jails actually are paid by the Feds and this offsets the the cost of running their jails for local taxpayers. (See this previous post in the Detention Home Blog about Sherburne County and Ice.)

As a retiree from the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office this is how things have changed. 

Up until the middle of the Stanek administration foreign nationals who were arrested in Hennepin County were run by ICE to see if they were here legally. If not ICE would put a hold on them and when their county charges were done or they were to be released we'd hold them overnight until ICE picked them up the next day. They'd go to an immigration hearing. Much the same as if they had a hold for a neighboring County or State. Typically they'd pick up 2-3 a day, more on Monday after a weekend. It was a daily occurrence.

Then around 2014 Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman decided Hennepin County would no longer honor those holds and we had to release them. The result was at least a dozen a week released back into the community!

The new policy was we'd notify ICE when they were going to be released. If they got there in time they would arrest them as they were leaving the release area. If not they walked free. We were not to delay their release to wait for ICE. Too many just walked.

To clarify, a person arrested with only an immigration hold was not brought into the Hennepin County Jail. The arresting agency would have to drive them to a county jail that had the contract. Only inmates arrested for a crime in Hennepin County who also had an ICE hold were held over.

IMO not honoring an ICE hold endangers public safety. Those County's not honoring these holds are endangering their citizens.