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Planned immigrant detention center roils Crete
Some south suburban residents and the area’s Democratic candidates for Congress condemn a planned 750-bed facility. But the village says it will bring jobs and property tax revenue.
Chip Mitchell | Jan. 10, 2012
Opposition to an immigrant detention center planned for south suburban Crete appears to be growing. About 150 area residents overflowed a Crete Township Hall meeting room Monday night to hear from critics of the project.
In recent days, meanwhile, both candidates in a tough Democratic primary battle for the area’s U.S. House seat have come out against the plan.
Immigrant advocates who led the meeting said federal officials are planning a medium-security facility holding foreign nationals awaiting deportation. The speakers voiced concern about the detainees’ human rights.
Crete residents raised their own issues. “We don’t have a fire department or police department here that can service that,” retiree Robert Hughes said after the meeting. “And if I ever go to sell my house again, who’s going to want to buy my house? I’ll be living three blocks away from the prison.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced last summer that the agency had “tentatively selected” Crete for the facility, which would be run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America. ICE on Monday sent a statement that says the village, the federal government and CCA are still working on details. “If and when a formal selection occurs, the appropriate notifications will be made,” the statement says.
Hughes and other Crete residents accused the village of trying to keep the plan a secret.
Village Administrator Tom Durkin said Crete officials learned about the 750-bed project from CCA in November 2010. He said the village board would hold a hearing before approving the plan: “It’s premature to bring anything to the public yet because, at this point, it’s an idea. It’s not a real project at this point.”
Durkin said the center would be built on farmland just southeast of Burville Road and Main Street, an intersection less than a mile from Crete Village Hall. He said the facility would generate property taxes and create more than 150 jobs.
The Democratic primary candidates include Debbie Halvorson, a Crete resident and former U.S. representative who announced her position on the detention center in a WBEZ interview after Monday night’s meeting.
“The fact that it’s being privately built and managed is one of the problems,” Halvorson said. “We’ve got 12 million people here illegally, they’re not going away, and we can’t keep building more detention centers.”
Halvorson’s stand followed a Friday statement from the incumbent, Jesse Jackson, Jr. “I don’t want the south suburbs to become famous for prisons and for breaking up families,” the statement says.
Correction: An earlier version of this report misquoted Crete Village Administrator Tom Durkin regarding the amount of property taxes the project could generate.
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Burville Road, CCA, Corrections Corporation of America, Crete, Crete Village Hall, Debbie Halvorson, detention centers, ice, illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, immigrant, Immigration, immigration and customs enforcement, Jesse Jackson Jr., Nashville, Robert Hughes, Thomas Durkin, Tom Durkin, undocumented immigrantsLike WBEZ on Facebook
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Comments
You don't get a vote on a privatized prison. They just buy the land and build. (Who owns this land would be my first question.) Then you have a whole new bunch of residents. Jobs - Ha - one's that are low in the pay scale, no pensions. The CAA does it's own training. They do NOT have a good track record. Check them out online. Lawsuits and escapees. Don't be so gullible. Do some checking into this. CAA has bankrupt more than one small town.
http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/12/crowley_prison_riot_new_det...
Obviously the alleged Crete resident whom resides on Main street is either a fictional character or someone from Eichorn's office. Really, jobs, no big deal. Perhaps you're also forgetting about the fact of what crap a medium security prison brings to the neighborhood. Yes, medium security. Perhaps you're planning on never selling your house, or your parents house if that's where you live. Get the facts pal. I still call "fictional character".....
Here we go putting the cart before the horse again, nothing is firm, this is all talk, just like most of Mayor Mike's projects are....why get all excited. This cannot go through without a vote, so say your breath and wait for the right time. As far as our great reps or wanna be's Debbie and JJ Jr.....well you know they will say anything that might get them the VOTE!
But if we are honest with ourselves, most of us want the illegal immigrants gone! Maybe not physically, but the term itself. If someone decided to come into our country by breaking the law, then why are we the bad guy for sending them home? If someone has been here for years, established themselves and wants to stay, then fine, make them pay some type of penality back taxes, repay whatever they have taken from our social services (including education) and make them legal tax-paying citzens.
Simple solution!
The jobs this will create are temporary. What's going to happen years down the road when all this immigration hype dies down? Immigration to the U.S. has died down, it's just a matter of time before they finish rounding up these poor people like cattle... then what? What will that prison be used for? It's a vicious GREEDY cycle. This is why the immigration system will NEVER be fixed, they need the people to fill these new detention centers so private companies can make MILLIONS off of them. It's no coincidence the government won't reform the law, or that states are trying to "fix" the problem at the local level with anti-immigrant laws, or that the government has set a quotas of how many immigrants to deport a year. Think about it, if all the undocumented were deported, what will happen to all the prisons? What about the staff? What about ICE and it's quota it won't be able to meet anymore? How may jobs will be lost then?? This system was set up this way from the beginning so private prisons can take a BIG chunk of TAXPAYER MONEY.
I go to Crete-Monee High School. Why would I attend a school about 4 blocks from prison? That is crazy! I want an education not to look out my class window to see a prison. It may not be for murders, but their people who have done wrong. You do not know what they have done before they came to the United States. The whole town will go down under. No one will want to live next to a prison, not a good environment for a school to be by, or families. It will affect all neighboring towns.
These people who go to the meeting with signs are stupid... come on.. i live in crete just off main st. not a huge deal, you people are freaking out... ever look at the jobs it may bring? its not like there willbe illegal aliens walking around.. im perfectly cool wiith this.
Now the residents of Crete know how us Crete Township residents feel about our property values being effected by an intermodal that will make my subdivision daylight 24 hours a day and put 1000 trucks a day in front of the only entrance to my subdivision off Rte 1. Not to mention they still want to build the thirs airport down the road fro where I live. Something stinks in Crete--its called GREED.
"Privately owned prison company." The very sound of that sends shivers up one's spine. The "kids for cash" scandal in PA, where a corrupt judge was paid by the prison company to funnel kids to the juvenile prison for minor offenses, is but one example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is one of the worst with numerous complaints and lawsuits.