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Mulch: Jail may soon house immigrants
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By TESA CULLI
tesa.culli@register-news.com
MT. VERNON — Since the opening of the Jefferson County Justice Center, there has been talk of housing prisoners from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Once again, the issue is being presented to the county, and according to Jefferson County Sheriff Roger Mulch, he has been putting paperwork together for the County Board’s consideration.
“ICE, during the last three months, has been hot to do business with us,” Mulch said. “I’ve been putting the paperwork together for the board and working on a per diem.”
Brought forward as a potential means to get paying prisoners in the facility, the work on contracts and per-diem rates with ICE was put on hold by the government after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to previous reports Mulch has provided to the county.
Last May, after losing Kane County prisoners and before contracts with Cook County were executed, the county Jail Committee again asked Mulch about the prospect of housing ICE detainees. Mulch reported at that time that housing the federal immigration prisoners was still on the table, but the county was in a paperwork limbo in having Jefferson County as one of the five Illinois prisons to house ICE prisoners.
Mulch said when the jail first opened that ICE was interested in housing prisoners at the facility due to the proximity of interstates 57 and 64 — corridors that are traveled by illegal immigrants to and from St. Louis and Chicago.
Just a month prior to the meeting with the Jail Committee — in April — a routine traffic stop by an officer of the Mt. Vernon Police Department on the northbound Interstate 57 ramp emphasized the contention of heavy immigrant traffic, when a conversion van was stopped and 21 illegal immigrants were found inside. The immigrants were picked up by ICE officials from St. Louis and transported to the Mississippi County Jail in Missouri for detention.
Mulch will be discussing the paperwork and per-diem issue with the fiscal committee on Tuesday. Mulch said he is ready to present a per-diem offer to ICE.
“There’s a lot involved to get to that point,” Mulch reported.
“The Fiscal Committee and I are talking about what we have to do.”
The Fiscal Committee will be meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the County Board room at the Jefferson County Courthouse.
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