\n<\/p>\n
Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones spoke to inmates inside the jail in Hamilton, Ohio. Half of the jail\u2019s beds have been contracted to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times<\/p>\n
By<\/span> Allison McCann<\/span> <\/p>\n The reporter interviewed eight sheriffs from seven states and visited the Butler County Jail in Ohio.<\/p>\n Sept. 8, 2025 <\/p>\n Vans carrying immigrants arrive at Ohio\u2019s Butler County Jail, about an hour north of Cincinnati, throughout the day and night. They come from across the state, from Illinois, Michigan and even Arizona. Some detainees will spend a few nights here, others weeks, as they wait to be deported.<\/p>\n Immigrant detainees are not new to Butler County. Except for a hiatus during the Biden years, the sheriff has held a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use space in his jail for nearly two decades. But now they fill nearly half the jail\u2019s 860 beds.<\/p>\n Butler is among the largest of a growing number of county jails and other local facilities that now house a sizable chunk of ICE detainees, many of whom have never been charged with a crime. The agency\u2019s use of these facilities has more than doubled since President Trump took office, and jails held about 10 percent of all detainees, or 7,100 people, on average, each day in July.<\/p>\n With detention numbers at a record high, jails have proven to be a quick and convenient way for ICE to expand its detention capacity beyond existing federal and private facilities. Many sheriffs are eager to assist in Mr. Trump\u2019s mass deportation plans \u2014 and to shore up their budgets \u2014 by offering up their beds.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re essential,\u201d said Jonathan Thompson, the executive director and chief executive of the National Sheriffs\u2019 Association. \u201cICE can\u2019t do what they need to do under the current circumstances without sheriffs and our jails.\u201d<\/p>\n Sources: Deportation Data Project; ICE Detention Management<\/p>\n Note: Only facilities with an average daily detainee population of at least one in July are shown. Not shown are facilities at the Naval Station in Guant\u00e1namo Bay; in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands; and at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.<\/p>\n Jails are often the first stop on the way to somewhere else in ICE\u2019s vast detention network, and they fill a geographic hole for ICE in the Midwest in particular, where there are few detention centers.<\/p>\n At most jails, ICE can easily spin up a contract through existing partnerships to hold federal inmates with the U.S. Marshals Service, reducing the time it takes to approve a new facility. County jails do not have to provide immigrants the same level of legal and medical services as those offered in dedicated ICE facilities, and the bed space is usually less expensive, too.<\/p>\n Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times<\/p>\n This year, the agency has inked new detention contracts with jails in both rural counties and urban areas. Most of the sheriffs signing up are in red states or from Republican-led areas of blue states, like Nassau County in New York. But the agency also holds large contracts for detention space at jails in Democratic-led states, including Massachusetts, Minnesota and Vermont.<\/p>\n Norman Chaffins, the sheriff in Grayson County, Ky., visited the White House during the first Trump administration to hear from leaders at ICE and Border Patrol. \u201cThat\u2019s where I first understood that even though we\u2019re not a border state, we\u2019re still feeling the effects of illegal immigrants right here in our county,\u201d he said. The jail now holds about 150 people each day for ICE.<\/p>\n Legal groups and immigrant advocates say local jails are ill-equipped to house immigrants, whose needs for legal, language and medical services are often different from those of other inmates. Inspections at some local facilities have turned up violations of ICE standards \u2014 water leaking from ceilings into beds, no daily change of clean socks and underwear \u2014 though conditions at county jails can vary widely.<\/p>\n During the Biden administration, ICE went as far as ending one jail contract in Alabama and pausing another in Florida, citing \u201cserious deficiencies\u201d and concerns about medical care. Under Mr. Trump, both facilities are once again holding hundreds of immigrants.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said that both facilities were recently inspected.<\/p>\n \u201cIf county jails are good enough to hold U.S. citizens, then they are sure good enough to hold illegal aliens,\u201d Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement.<\/p>\n Jails have been part of the ICE detention system since the agency\u2019s creation. During the George W. Bush administration, ICE had contracts with around 350 jails, and about half of all immigrant detainees were held in local facilities. The detention model, at the time, was to seek out contracts with lots of jails for little bits of use \u2014 five, 10, 20 beds.<\/p>\n At the start of the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security overhauled its approach to detention and began to contract with dedicated facilities designed specifically for ICE, mostly by private prison operators.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the county jails, oversight was complicated, and there were concerns about mixing civil immigration detainees with criminal inmates, and bad things were happening,\u201d said Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former ICE official who served in Republican and Democratic administrations. \u201cThe thinking was: Let\u2019s reduce the number of county jails and focus on building civil detention.\u201d<\/p>\n Two parking spots are designated for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers at the Butler County Jail.<\/p>\n Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times<\/p>\n Under Mr. Trump, ICE is seeking both new and old ways to find space for the tens of thousands of people in its custody. The administration has reopened several private facilities that sat dormant, and it has struck deals in Indiana and Nebraska to use beds in their state prisons. And it has turned back to the county jails.<\/p>\n \u201cAll you sheriffs in the room, we need your bed space,\u201d Tom Homan, the so-called border czar, said at a National Sheriffs\u2019 Association\u2019s conference in February.<\/p>\n Average daily population at local facilities with the largest growth in ICE detention this year<\/p>\n A single county jail provides ICE with at most 500 beds a day, though many operate above their contracted capacity. In July, there were about 163 local facilities being used by ICE, and, on average, they each held about 44 people a day.<\/p>\n \u201cICE doesn\u2019t have the capacity for what they\u2019re doing,\u201d said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County, Fla. He said that ICE needs more beds for longer stays \u2014 60 to 90 days \u2014 which some jails can provide. \u201cYou can deputize tons of local cops, but if the system doesn\u2019t have enough room, what are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n In many cases, the size of the jail is less important to ICE\u2019s strategy than its location. People arrested in nearly any state can be held locally until ICE can find space in one of its large, private detention facilities clustered in the South. Since the start of Mr. Trump\u2019s crackdown, more than a third of all people arrested by ICE have been held in a local facility at some point.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the largest jail infrastructure in the world, and it\u2019s an easy thing for ICE to fall back on,\u201d said Silky Shah, the executive director of the Detention Watch Network, an advocacy group that opposes immigrant detention. \u201cThe jail is a really central component of the deportation machine.\u201d<\/p>\n Many sheriffs see the decision to partner with ICE as good policy \u2014 most support tougher immigration restrictions, according to a 2022 survey \u2014 and good politics. Often, their constituents do too.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an ideological role that\u2019s played where sheriffs are excited about participating in the deportation process and supporting President Trump\u2019s agenda,\u201d said Mirya Holman, a professor of public policy at the University of Houston who studies the role of the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Inside Butler County Jail, Sheriff Richard K. Jones\u2019s office displays several photographs of Mr. Trump, including one of both men thumbs-upping together after a campaign rally in Cincinnati in 2016 where the sheriff took the stage.<\/p>\n Mr. Jones first signed on to accept ICE detainees in 2008 but canceled the jail\u2019s contract under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in part because he didn\u2019t like the administration\u2019s immigration policies. (The jail was also facing a lawsuit brought by two immigrants who alleged they were beaten by guards.)<\/p>\n Richard K. Jones, the Butler County sheriff, displays an altered photograph of President Trump made to be shown brandishing a handgun, in his office.<\/p>\n Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times<\/p>\n Mr. Jones said he got interested in helping ICE 20 years ago after an undocumented immigrant released from his jail went on to rape a 9-year-old girl. He feels his motivations line up with the administration\u2019s enforcement priorities, even as they have expanded to include people without a criminal record.<\/p>\n His corrections staff members, he said, prefer to work in the cellblocks housing immigrants.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t cause any trouble. They stay to themselves. They have tables they can play cards on,\u201d he said. \u201cMy local homegrown prisoners want to fight all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n ICE typically pays jails $70 to $110 per day per detainee, usually more than counties budget for local inmates. For some counties, that is a small but significant \u2014 and reliable \u2014 source of revenue. In Butler County, the total budget for the sheriff\u2019s office this year is $49 million, and the county expects to earn about $4 million from ICE.<\/p>\n But at least some sheriffs say it\u2019s not worth it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were making $1 million a year holding federal inmates,\u201d Joe Kennedy, the sheriff in Dubuque County, Iowa, said about an earlier contract with the federal government. He declined an invitation from ICE to offer detention space in his jail this year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem was, logistically, it was very difficult. You\u2019re responsible for moving the inmates, getting them to court hearings \u2014 we were running people all over,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not interested in putting our staff through that again.\u201d<\/p>\n At Butler County Jail, male ICE detainees are housed in a separate cellblock from local inmates.<\/p>\n Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times<\/p>\n One of the chief criticisms of ICE\u2019s jail partnerships is that jails are meant for criminal, not civil, detention. Most immigration violations are a civil offense, and about a third of people arrested by ICE this year had no criminal history.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople hate private detention because they hate the profit motive, but the local jails are jail \u2014 they are carceral, punitive places,\u201d said Royce Murray, who was a senior D.H.S. official in the Biden administration.<\/p>\n In interviews, immigrants who spent time detained at county jails in Florida, Indiana and Kentucky described what they said was cruel and unfair treatment by corrections staff, including taking away their mattresses and bedding, or refusing to provide basic necessities like cups and spoons. One detainee said he would rinse out old potato chip bags in order to have something to drink water from.<\/p>\n Unlike local inmates arrested on charges like drunk driving or drug possession, immigrant detainees are rarely given the option to bond out of jail. While most are transferred to bigger ICE facilities after 72 hours, in some cases, they have spent weeks or months inside jails not designed for long-term stays.<\/p>\n Source: Deportation Data Project<\/p>\n Note: Average length of stay reflects those booked into detention at local facilities after Jan. 20, or those who had been released as of July 28.<\/p>\n There was once an effort to make the rules governing ICE facilities consistent \u2014 provisions like no less than five hours per week of access to law libraries for detainees, and at least one hour per day of outdoor physical exercise \u2014 but the agency has loosened those requirements for some facilities over the years, including many jails.<\/p>\n This year, there have been reports of overcrowded, unsanitary and inhumane conditions at some of the local facilities ICE uses. Detainees at a state corrections facility in Anchorage said they had been pepper sprayed and denied access to their lawyers. At the Phelps County Jail in Rolla, Mo., \u2014 which signed its first ICE detention contract this year \u2014 a 27-year-old Colombian man died by suicide in April. (As of this month, the jail will no longer accept new ICE detainees and will transfer existing ones, citing cost concerns.)<\/p>\n Federal officials declined to answer specific questions about these cases and said all jails used by ICE meet federal detention standards. \u201cRoutine inspections are one component of ICE\u2019s multilayered inspections and oversight process that ensures transparency in how facilities meet the threshold of care outlined in contracts with facilities, as well as ICE\u2019s national detention standards,\u201d Ms. McLaughlin, the D.H.S. spokeswoman, said.<\/p>\n Detainees at the Butler County Jail can access an indoor recreation room inside each cellblock.<\/p>\n Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times<\/p>\n On a visit in July, the Butler County Jail appeared clean and organized. It was not crowded. The jail holds about 90 people per cellblock, or \u201cpod,\u201d with two people per cell. Male ICE detainees were held in a separate area of the jail from regular inmates, but the few women were mixed with the local population. Small televisions showing Bounce TV played in the cells.<\/p>\n But there was no library, no internet access or computers. In the pod reporters visited in July, there was one cart of about two dozen books. The pods at the jail each have their own recreation area: a concrete basketball half-court with a single window. Detainees are not allowed outside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones spoke to inmates inside the jail in Hamilton, Ohio. Half of the jail\u2019s beds have been contracted to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times By Allison McCann The reporter interviewed eight sheriffs from seven states and visited the Butler County Jail in Ohio. Sept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1805,856,2466,12186,2755,12212,291],"class_list":{"0":"post-19892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-centers","9":"tag-detention","10":"tag-ice","11":"tag-jails","12":"tag-local","13":"tag-sheriffs","14":"tag-turning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}County jails play a critical role in ICE detention<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Reviving an old model
County jails have made room for ICE detainees<\/h3>\n
Thousands of ICE detainees have been moved through county jails<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Political and other benefits
\u2018Carceral, punitive places\u2019
Average length of stay for ICE detainees held at county jails this year<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n