WBEZ | ice

Deportation protesters use ‘lockboxes,’ slam Durbin

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:25:00 -0500

Police sawed through plastic pipes on Tuesday to pry apart seven protesters at an immigration detention center near Chicago. The protesters, all in the United States without legal permission, demanded a halt to deportations as Congress considers allowing most of the country’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants to apply for legal status.

President Barack Obama’s administration has increased deportations to roughly 1,100 a day, a record pace. Removals have continued as the Senate Judiciary Committee works on a sweeping immigration bill drafted by a bipartisan group that includes Dick Durbin (D-Illinois). The protesters called on Durbin to push Obama to suspend the removals.

“We’ve had over a million families separated because of deportations,” said protester Stephanie Camba, 22, a Filipina who said her parents brought her to the United States when she was 11 years old. “This bill is not enough if it’s not going to stop deportations. It should be deportations being stopped first.”

The protesters, backed by about 100 supporters, held each other using chains and locks inside three-foot segments of polyvinyl chloride tubes — civil-disobedience setups knowns as “lockboxes.” The protesters sat down in a street to block vehicles from the center, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in suburban Broadview.

ICE holds immigrants awaiting deportation in the center before loading them into vans and buses that carry them to flights from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

A statement from Durbin’s office in response to the protest says the senator was “instrumental in pushing the administration” to allow many young unauthorized immigrants to apply for work papers and a deportation reprieve under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama policy initiated last year.

Durbin, the statement adds, is also working on the immigration bill as a member of the Senate panel. “The hope is that next month the full Senate will begin debate on this common-sense, compromise proposal that will provide millions of immigrants with an accountable path to citizenship,” the statement says.

After police cut through the pipes, Broadview officers arrested the protesters, charged them with disorderly conduct and released them.

Chip Mitchell is WBEZ’s West Side bureau reporter. Follow him on Twitter @ChipMitchell1 and @WBEZoutloud, and connect with him through Facebook and LinkedIn.

What qualifications do you need to be a professional Zamboni driver?

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:16:00 -0500

Tug Gillingham of Bridgeport wanted to know:

“What qualifications do you need to be professional Zamboni driver?”

Our search for the answer led us into the chilly depths of Chicago’s United Center to meet head ice technician Dan Ahearn. He's called “The God of Ice in the Midwest” by a fellow Zamboni driver. Ahearn’s certainly earned the nickname. He’s been behind the wheel of a Zamboni for the 31 years.

Resurfacing ice is the technical term used to describe what Ahearn actually does on his Zamboni: the shaving, cleaning and smoothing of the surface of an ice rink. The Zamboni and other machines that do this are all known as ice resurfacing machines. But since Zamboni was the original, the brand name is often adopted to describe any and all ice resurfacing machines. (It’s become what Xerox is to copy machines or Kleenex is to facial tissue.) Dan Ahearn says there’s a good reason for that.

“Zamboni's the best," he said. "They’ve been building them the longest. The other ones are copies off them, to an extent. There’s a company, Olympia, that makes machines. A couple companies in Europe makes machines. But Zamboni probably has 75 percent of the market... Just in the Chicago area, there’s 60 rinks and probably 50 of them have Zambonis.”

While the Zamboni Company wouldn't confirm that number for WBEZ, it did say that, “the Zamboni Company sells more machines annually than [their] competitors combined. [And] it would be safe to say that [they] have the majority of the market share.”

You might be surprised to learn that operating a Zamboni requires no special license or certification, according to Ahearn, who also works as a welder and mechanic at the United Center. He said that most ice rinks that need a driver will likely show you everything you need to know.

But after talking with him, it was clear that a little bravery and an enthusiasm for winter sports are probably a plus for landing the job. Or, in Ahearn’s case, a lot of both.

When he was 12, he was refereeing a hockey game for younger kids. The guy who was supposed to resurface the ice that day never showed up. All Ahearn had done up to that point was park the machine.

“[So I think to myself], well the guy’s not there, and I drive the thing, so I can probably figure this out,” Ahearn said. “That’s the first time I ever did it - missed a lot of spots, but the ice got done.”

Still can’t get enough of Zamboni? Then check out these fun facts from the company’s website:

The machines travel an average of three miles per hockey game, which makes sense if you think each resurfacing is 3/4 of a mile. Add that up over the course of a year, and these ice makers on wheels each travel close to 2,000 miles a year.
Prior to the invention of the Zamboni machine, it took three or four workers more than an hour to resurface the ice by hand.
More than 10,000 Zamboni machines have been delivered around the world.
The machine’s top speed is 9.7 mph, and it can go from 0 to ¼ mile in 93.5 seconds. That’s according to an April 2005 issue of Road & Track magazine, which performed an actual road test.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Anthony Martinez is a multimedia producer living in Chicago. Follow him on Tumblr.

Conservative legal group challenges Cook County immigration policy

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:02:00 -0500

Invoking the Boston Marathon bombings, a national conservative group has filed a lawsuit aimed at a Cook County ordinance that requires jail personnel to disregard federal immigration detainers.

Washington-based Judicial Watch says the county has no legal right to ignore the detainers, which are U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests that local jails hold specified individuals up to two business days beyond what their criminal cases require.

President Obama’s administration says the detainers, which help ICE put the inmates into deportation proceedings, are crucial for focusing immigration enforcement on criminals.

Cook County officials say detainers also erode community trust in local police. In 2011, the County Board approved an ordinance that halted detainer compliance by the county’s massive jail. ICE abruptly lost convenient access to hundreds of immigration violators each year. Lawmakers in other parts of the country, meanwhile, approved bills modeled after the policy.

The suit, which claims federal law preempts the ordinance, asks Cook County Circuit Court to strike down the local measure and compel Sheriff Tom Dart to comply with the detainers. The suit accuses Dart of “failure to carry out his legal duties under both federal and state law.”

At a Monday press conference Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton pointed to last week’s news events. “In light of the Boston Marathon bombings, there is a national-security component to these detainers by ICE.”

Authorities say two Chechen immigrants — one a permanent-resident visa holder, the other a naturalized U.S. citizen — are suspected of having planted the bombs that exploded April 15 in Boston.

Judicial Watch is representing the suit’s plaintiff, Chicago resident Brian McCann, who is the brother of a pedestrian killed in a 2011 hit-and-run collision in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. The alleged driver, a Mexican immigrant named Saúl Chávez, had a DUI conviction. He was arrested and charged with the hit and run. A Cook County judge set the bond at $250,000.

ICE suspected Chávez was in the country illegally and slapped a detainer on him. But after the county enacted the ordinance, Chávez posted $25,000 — the required 10 percent of the bond. He walked free and went missing.

“Dart is thumbing his nose at the federal government and replacing federal immigration priorities with Cook County’s own immigration policy,” Fitton said. “Releasing these criminal aliens before they can be taken into custody by ICE endangers the public.”

Fitton echoed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton, who have said the Cook County ordinance threatens public safety.

That claim was the subject of a WBEZ investigation that found that inmates freed as a result of the ordinance had not reoffended or jumped bail more than other former inmates had.

Dart’s office, in a statement late Monday, pointed to the sheriff’s support for allowing the county to honor ICE detainers for inmates charged with violent offenses and inmates with a number of prior convictions.

Chip Mitchell is WBEZ’s West Side bureau reporter. Follow him on Twitter @ChipMitchell1 and @WBEZoutloud, and connect with him through Facebook and LinkedIn.

Biggert, Foster sidestep immigrant detention-center project

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 02:34:00 -0500

U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert and her Democratic challenger, Bill Foster, are locking horns in one of the nation’s most competitive House races, but both are trying to sidestep a brewing controversy over something President Barack Obama’s administration is talking about bringing to the district: a privately run immigrant detention center.

The project came to light last week when an official of Joliet, a city 40 miles southwest of Chicago, said he had had talks with federal officials and Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America. The Joliet official, City Manager Thomas Thanas, said the detention center could generate hundreds of jobs and city revenue.

The project is not going over well with Latino groups that organized a candidate forum Monday night at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a Joliet church. The forum’s moderator tried to ask the 11th Congressional District candidates whether they would help fight the project.

The response from Foster, a former U.S. representative, elicited nods from the roughly 200 audience members at points. “For-profit incarceration is something that I am personally quite leery of,” Foster said. “We have an immigration system that depends way too heavily on incarceration and deportation.”

But Foster said it was too early for him to make a decision about the detention center. “I want to see the details of it,” he said. “So the answer is, I’m waiting and seeing.”

Biggert, the race’s Republican, did not attend the forum. She sent a spokesman, who read a campaign statement that did not answer the moderator’s question. “Congresswoman Biggert would strongly oppose the federal government coming in and mandating what Joliet should or should not do,” the spokesman told the crowd. “It’s really, ultimately, Joliet’s decision.”

Hours before the forum, WBEZ asked the Biggert campaign whether she would back a privately built and operated immigrant detention center in the district. The campaign sent the statement and did not answer the question.

Joliet’s project follows a setback for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CCA in south suburban Crete, where the agency wanted the company to build and run the detention center.

A political tide against the Crete project rose in January, when rivals in the area’s Democratic House primary — U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his challenger, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson — both sided against it. Village trustees rejected the plan in June.

Joliet detention-center talks include private prison firm

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 05:02:00 -0500

A top Joliet official says his talks exploring possibilities for an immigrant detention center in the city have included the nation’s largest private prison operator.

City Manager Thomas Thanas told WBEZ he had engaged in a “preliminary conversation” with officials of Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America to see “whether Joliet might be a suitable site” for a facility that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants in the Chicago area.

Thanas declined to say when and where the conversation took place or what details were discussed. “We have not reviewed plans,” he said. “Nothing has been filed on a formal basis.”

Joliet officials are “not talking about any specific sites at this point,” Thanas said. He added that “a facility like this could not be located near a residential area, schools or a commercial district.”

Thanas referred questions about site possibilities to CCA, whose spokesman referred inquiries to ICE, which declined to discuss the Joliet project.

The federal agency sent a statement that said building a Chicago-area detention center would help improve immigrant confinement conditions and enable “locating detainees closer to where they are apprehended so that they can be near their families, community resources and the ICE field office.”

What would Joliet get? “Hundreds of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent jobs,” Thanas said. “I’m always interested in projects that have an opportunity to create jobs and revenues for our school district.”

Federal officials met with Thanas about the project October 17 in Washington, he said. “It was a fact-gathering opportunity for both them and me.”

Thanas also briefed some City Council members about the detention-center possibility.

But officials managed to keep the project out of public view until the Chicago Tribune revealed it late Wednesday. Within hours, some Joliet activists and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights began organizing opposition.

“We don’t believe you should be making a profit off of tearing families apart because they’re undocumented,” said Richard Rodríguez, a Joliet resident who chairs the Mexican American Coalition of Will County. “There should be comprehensive immigration reform. Address the issue properly.”

Thanas replied that national immigration policy was not Joliet’s business. “That’s a matter of federal concern,” he said.

Joliet’s nine City Council members on Thursday declined to comment or did not return messages about the project.

The Joliet talks follow a highly publicized setback for ICE and CCA in south suburban Crete, where the agency wanted the company to build and run a 788-bed detention center. Village trustees rejected the plan June 11 after months of protests by residents, human-rights advocates and public-sector unions.

CCA had greater success in Springfield. The company lobbied against Illinois legislation that would have banned government agencies at the local and state levels from contracting with private firms to build or run civil detention centers. The bill passed the Senate in March but stalled after a series of close House floor votes May 31.

Movie goers lack options on Chicago's South Side

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 11:17:00 -0500

When I wanted to see Night Catches Us, an independent black film released in 2011, there was only one theater in Chicago where it got a regular run: The ICE Chatham 14 on 87th Street.

But for movie-goers on Chicago's South Side, the Chatham is one of only a few options for seeing any film.

So you can imagine how people felt when they showed up Friday night and found a dark, shuttered theater.

The Cook County Sheriff’s office issued an eviction notice, which was on the door of the theater, along with another sign saying the theater was "temporarily closed" and would re-open soon "under new management." The Sheriff’s office and the Cook County Circuit Clerk’s office had no forthcoming information.

Now the theater may be re-opening. In an e-mail, owner Alisa Starks (who along with her husband Donzell opened the theater in 1997) said, "It's been a challenging process. But the theater is expected to be open by Friday." Starks also said a new company will manage it.

The rift that apparently caused the original closure, a conflict between the Starks and their investor, Michael Silver, seems to have been smoothed over, at least temporarily. Starks told me, "Most positively, our investor has recently committed to making needed capital improvements."

What led to the shuttering of the Chatham had been hard to sort out. In the immediate aftermath of the closing, there were various reports, starting with this community blog. A Chicago Sun-Times article claimed the Starks have a history of not paying city amusement taxes and had been to court with movie distributors. And CBS2 quoted sources saying things went sour between the Starks and Silver.

The Starks own outright their Lawndale 10 theater on Roosevelt Road and a shuttered property at 62nd and Western. At Chatham both Starks and Silver have discussed plans for digital convergence and other improvements, but those can't proceed without some sort of resolution between the partners.

There are only a few other theaters on the South Side, including the AMC Ford City 14 and the Chicago Ridge 6 to the west of Chatham, as well as the Showplace Icon in the South Loop. At the University of Chicago there's the student-run Doc Films. And when the Harper Court and 53rd Street redevelopment is complete, Hyde Park will once again have a commercial movie theater.

But the Chatham is special in other ways. When Alisa and Donzell Starks opened it in 1997, they say they were launching the first African-American owned theater chain in the United States.

I spoke with the Starks in 2011, as they were about to re-open their ICE Lawndale movie theater. They underscored the significance of being a minority-owned theater serving a largely minority community, and providing people with easy access to mainstream movies, as well as films they might otherwise not see.

At Chatham they screened the latest Hollywood movies. But they also made a place for independent cinema, and for community events: hosting non-film conversations, and screening the presidential debates for free.

The Starks say they also wanted to provide locals with jobs and help with the area's overall economic development. In short, the Chatham was meant to be a place not just to see movies but also a place for community building.

Meanwhile, the community has mobilized. A number of Facebook campaigns were put together by Occupy Black Chicago and Occupy Black Media, local activists mobilizing around economic issues in minority communities. They see the closing of Chatham 14 in the context of a broader economic decline in parts of the city and a lack of access to community and cultural resources, particularly on the South Side.

Alisa Starks also said ICE is "still contemplating" a press release and statement, likely shortly after the theater re-opens this Friday.

Cook County’s disregard of ICE detainers catches on

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:39:00 -0500

A Cook County policy of disregarding immigration detainers is catching on. Lawmakers in other parts of the country, most recently the District of Columbia on Tuesday, have approved bills modeled after the policy.

Some Republicans are pressing President Barack Obama’s administration to take reprisals against those jurisdictions. In a hearing Tuesday, the chairwoman of a U.S. House homeland security panel urged Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton to punish Cook County for its stand.

The detainers — ICE requests that local jails hold specified individuals up to two business days beyond what their criminal cases require — help put the inmates into deportation proceedings. Jail compliance with detainers is a key part of Secure Communities, a program that has helped the Obama administration shift immigration enforcement toward criminals.

Cook County officials say detainers also erode community trust in local police. Last September, the County Board approved an ordinance that halted detainer compliance by the county’s massive jail. ICE abruptly lost convenient access to hundreds of immigration violators each year.

“The Cook County legislation was very critical and a part of the development for the legislation in the District of Columbia,” said Ron Hampton, a retired Metropolitan Police officer in the nation’s capital who has pushed the D.C. bill.

Hampton pointed to a legal opinion that supporters of the Cook County measure obtained from State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office last year. That opinion, citing a federal court ruling in Indiana, called detainer compliance voluntary and helped convince the Cook County Board to approve the ordinance. Hampton said the opinion added weight to what he called “a model piece of legislation.”

Since the Cook County ordinance passed, New York City, the state of Connecticut and the California county of Santa Clara have also curtailed their compliance with immigration detainers.

On July 5, the California Senate approved similar legislation that would affect the entire state. That bill is expected to pass the state Assembly. Gov. Jerry Brown has not indicated whether he would sign it into law.

At the U.S. House hearing, Rep. Candice Miller (R-Michigan) said Secure Communities had “excellent buy-in” from jurisdictions across the nation. Miller, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, called Cook County “the big holdout” and asked Morton about it.

Morton repeated an administration claim that Cook County’s disregard of ICE detainers compromised public safety. That claim was the subject of a WBEZ investigation completed in May. Inmates freed as a result of the ordinance, the investigation found, have not reoffended or jumped bail more than other former inmates have.

Morton also told the subcommittee about letters he had written to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to spell out his concerns. “We have been working with the county to see if there isn’t some solution,” Morton said. “I won’t sugarcoat it. I don’t think that that approach is going to work in full. We’re going to need the help of others. We have been exploring our options under federal law with the Department of Justice.”

Morton said he would also push for a cutoff of some federal funds for the county’s jail.

That vow won praise from Miller. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am,” she said. “If they’re not going to assist us in removing not only criminal aliens but those that might go on to commit a terrorist attack or what-have-you, because they want to have their city become a sanctuary, the federal government cannot stand by idly and allow that to happen.”

As other jurisdictions adopt the Cook County approach, some enforcement advocates are calling for a tougher federal response.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman of the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, points out that the Obama administration has sued states such as Arizona and Alabama for taking immigration enforcement into their own hands

“Yet, when it comes to jurisdictions that have openly defied federal enforcement, then the Justice Department seems to have enormous patience and is extremely lenient,” Mehlman said.

Immigration enforcement program faces novel suit

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 10:16:00 -0500

We’ve been hearing a lot about how immigration enforcement intersects with local law enforcement. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Arizona requirement that police officers check the immigration status of people they stop for other reasons. Now we’ll hear from our West Side bureau about a suburban Chicago man who got tangled up with immigration enforcement after a drug arrest. He has filed a suit that offers a novel challenge to one of President Obama’s key immigration-enforcement programs.

MITCHELL: There’s no doubt James Makowski of Clarendan Hills did something illegal. In 2010 police caught him with heroin and he pleaded guilty to that. A judge approved him for a state-run boot camp. But that’s not where Makowski ended up.

MAKOWSKI: I thought I would be home in 120 days but -- then after I get a note back from a counselor, after I’d asked about when I’d be shipping to boot camp -- she said that I was ineligible for boot camp due to an immigration detainer.

MITCHELL: That’s basically a flag in his file from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency known as ICE. So . . .

MAKOWSKI: I got sent to the maximum-security penitentiary in Pontiac.

MITCHELL: And he stayed for about two months. How did this happen? It comes down to an ICE program called Secure Communities. In that program, FBI fingerprint data about people booked at local jails get run against immigration data. If a check yields a match, ICE can issue one of its detainers. The point is to catch people in the criminal justice system who are not authorized to be in the U.S. and eventually deport them. The thing is, Makowski had every right to be in the country.

MAKOWSKI: I feel like I got punished twice for what I did in my past.

MITCHELL: Makowski’s detention was based on faulty information. He was born in India and adopted by a U.S. family. When he was 1, the government granted him citizenship. But — at age 22, when he got picked up on the heroin charge — the feds didn’t have their records right. So, Makowski stayed in that maximum-security pen before authorities straightened things out and let him into the boot camp. On Tuesday, Makowski filed a federal suit over all this. Defendants include top officials at the FBI, ICE and their parent departments. Makowski claims that when the FBI shared data with ICE — and when ICE didn’t keep track of his citizenship status — they violated his rights under the U.S. Privacy Act. Legal experts say the suit appears to be the first challenge to Secure Communities under that law. Makowski’s attorneys include Mark Fleming of the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center.

FLEMING: There [are] simple ways in which both the FBI and ICE could be in compliance with the Privacy Act.

MITCHELL: Fleming says ICE could, for example, interview suspected immigration violators before slapping detainers on them.

FLEMING: Unfortunately, the system does not provide those basic checks right now and, so, there are many more U.S. citizens that are getting wrapped up into this.

MITCHELL: Officials at ICE and the departments of Justice and Homeland Security did not answer our questions about the suit Tuesday (see UPDATE). An FBI spokesman said his agency does not comment about pending litigation outside the courtroom. But a supporter of tougher immigration controls doubts that the Privacy Act protects U.S. citizens from what Makowski endured. Jessica Vaughan directs policy studies for a Washington group called the Center for Immigration Studies. Vaughan says the FBI and ICE share the fingerprint information for legitimate law-enforcement purposes.

VAUGHAN: Mistakes can be made. But that is not necessarily a reason to throw out the whole system.

MITCHELL: Vaughan says it’s important to keep something else in mind.

VAUGHAN: The individual who’s filing this suit would not have had anything to worry about had he not been convicted of a serious crime to begin with. He was convicted of a drug crime.

MITCHELL: Convicted he was. But Makowski says no one should have to serve extra time behind bars because of errors in immigration records.

After a deadline for Tuesday’s broadcast of this story, ICE provided this statement: “The information-sharing partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI serves as the cornerstone of Secure Communities, and fulfills a mandate required by federal law. This information sharing does not violate the Privacy Act. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is evaluating the allegations contained in the lawsuit; however, we do not comment on pending litigation.”

The ICE statement continues: “In December ICE announced a new detainer form and the launch of a toll-free hotline — (855) 448-6903 — that detained individuals can call if they believe they may be U.S. citizens or victims of a crime. The hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by ICE personnel at the Law Enforcement Support Center. Translation services are available in several languages from 7 a.m. until midnight (Eastern), seven days a week. ICE personnel collect information from the individual and refer it to the relevant ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Field Office for immediate action.”

Crete trustees reject detention center plan

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 22:24:00 -0500

Updated with reactions from ICE and an immigrant advocate June 12 at 4:47 p.m.

After months of rancor among its leaders and residents, a Chicago suburb has rejected a plan by the country’s largest private prison operator to build and run an immigrant detention center.

A unanimous voice vote of Crete’s six trustees Monday night ended village negotiations with Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America. The vote came just hours after an unsuccessful negotiating session between Crete and CCA officials. Village President Michael Einhorn said the vote blocks the project “as of now.”

The decision thrilled residents who have campaigned against the plan since last fall. “When lots of little people get together, it’s possible that the big guns will listen,” said Marimonica Murray, a leader of the group Concerned Citizens of Crete, which led opposition to the detention center.

Under the proposal, Crete would have contracted with CCA, which would have owned the medium-security facility and held more than 700 foreign nationals awaiting deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Crete officials say they first learned about the project from CCA in 2010. ICE announced last summer that the federal agency had “tentatively selected” Crete for the facility.

Village officials touted the potential for scores of permanent jobs. They also talked up expected taxes and per-detainee payments for the village.

But the proposal met stiff resistance from Crete residents worried that the detention center would drag down property values, stretch village services too thin and threaten public safety. Those residents aligned with immigrant advocates who said CCA treated its detainees and workers poorly. The company disputed those claims.

Illinois legislation that would have derailed the project sailed through the Senate in March. The bill would have banned government agencies at the local and state levels from contracting with private firms to build or run civil detention centers. A close House floor vote last month defeated the measure.

After Crete trustees turned down the planned detention center, a written statement from company spokesman Steven Owen called the outcome “disappointing to the taxpayers, job seekers and local businesses that stood to benefit from this economic boost.” The statement said the company “will continue to work closely with ICE in meeting their needs in the region.”

A statement Tuesday from President Barack Obama’s administration says ICE will review proposals for a detention center elsewhere in the Chicago area. The statement says a facility would help improve the confinement conditions and “allow for some consolidation of detainees closer to their place of apprehension and immigration proceedings.”

Fred Tsao, policy director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the administration instead ought to use its Crete setback as an opportunity to allow more immigration violators to remain in their homes. “Why is ICE keeping these thousands of people in detention at great expense to taxpayers when many of these individuals pose no threat to the community?” Tsao asked.

Proposal to ban private detention centers stumbles

Thu, 31 May 2012 17:48:00 -0500

Updated Friday, June 1, at 12:30 a.m.

A bill that would have blocked an immigrant detention center near Chicago failed Thursday in a series of close Illinois House floor votes as lawmakers raced to adjourn for the summer.

Parliamentary moves by the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Edward Acevedo (D-Chicago), kept the bill alive late into the evening. In one roll call, the measure came within one vote of the 60 needed for passage. A 57-58 roll call, with two members voting present, defeated the bill.

The legislation would have banned government agencies at the local and state levels from contracting with private firms to build or run civil detention centers. It would have thwarted a proposal for Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America to construct and operate a 788-bed facility in the village of Crete, a suburb 30 miles south of Chicago. The facility would hold detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Sen. Antonio Munoz (D-Chicago) pushed the bill, SB1064, through the Senate in March. Gov. Pat Quinn’s office said he would sign the measure if it reached his desk.

As the House took it up, however, Springfield-based Dorgan-McPike & Associates lobbied hard for CCA. Other opposition to the measure came from immigration enforcement proponents and building-trades unions eager for the Crete project’s construction jobs.

The bill’s supporters countered with an amendment aimed at winning votes from downstate representatives. The amendment would have allowed Tri-County Justice and Detention Center to keep its private operator, Paladin Eastside Psychological Services. That facility, located in Ullin, holds ICE detainees.

During a 25-minute House floor debate on the bill Thursday afternoon, Acevedo pointed out that the Crete construction jobs would be temporary and that the project’s permanent jobs could come at the expense of facilities that hold ICE detainees in other parts of Illinois.

“The people of Crete, who you would think would be the most eager for these jobs, overwhelmingly do not want this facility,” Acevedo said. “They see the facility will place huge burdens on the community — traffic, police and other costs — as well as abuse that a private prison company could bring.”

Acevedo pointed to a deadly riot this month at CCA-operated Adams County Correctional Facility in Natchez, Mississippi.

But Rep. Dennis Reboletti (R-Elmhurst) brought up Indiana, an Illinois neighbor that allows CCA to operate a county jail in Indianapolis. “Isn’t it possible that if we do pass this law that this company could simply go into Indiana — locate the same facility and house the same detainees we would in Crete — just across the border?”

A written statement from CCA spokesman Mike Machak called the bill’s failure “an important step in realizing the Obama administration’s vision for detention, which provides detainees awaiting civil proceedings with a humane and appropriate environment.”

The bill’s supporters offered a different interpretation. “This was a David and Goliath fight,” Lawrence Benito, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said in a statement. “Though we were able to add new Republican votes, many Democrats showed deep disrespect for the immigrant families in their own districts.”

Crete officials have yet to approve the detention center but have touted the jobs potential. They have also talked up expected taxes and per-detainee payments for the village.