Nebraska plan for an immigrant detention center faces backlash and uncertainty

Omaha, Neb. – No official agreement has been signed to convert a state prison remote to Nebraska to the last immigration detention center for the radical repression of President Donald Trump, more than three weeks since the governor announced the plan and that the legislators and the nearby residents are becoming more and more skeptical.

Correctional services officials insist that installation could start to house hundreds of male detainees next month, with classrooms and other spaces in the McCook modernized McCook Ethics camp for beds. However, legislators were informed last week by state officials said they had obtained some concrete costs on costs, staff and surveillance.

“There were more unanswered questions than questions answered in terms of what they know,” said Senator of the Wendy Deboer State.

Managers of the city of McCook were caught in mid-August when the republican governor Jim Pillen announced that the minimum security prison in southwest Nebraska would serve as a center of the Midwest for immigration detainees. Pillen and federal officials nicknamed the “Cornhusker Clink”, in accordance with other alliterative detention centers such as “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida and the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana.

“City leaders have absolutely no choice in this area,” said Mike O’Dell, local newspaper publisher, The McCook Gazette.

McCook is the county of Red Willow County where voters favored Trump in the 2024 elections by almost 80%. Most of them probably support the repression of the president’s immigration, O’Dell said. However, the city of around 7,000 people was also used to low -level camp offenders working on roads, in parks, county and city offices and even local schools.

“People here have learned to know them in many cases,” said O’Dell. “I think there is a feeling here that people want to know where these people will end and that they will go well.”

The labor ethics camp opened in 2001 and currently shelters around 155 prisoners who participated in education, treatment and work programs to help them spend life outside the prison. Heads of state often praise him as a success to reduce the recurrence of prisoners.

Some legislators have complained that Pillen acted with imprudence by offering the establishment, noting that the prison system of the State is already one of the most overcrowded and perpetually workforce in the country. The Governor’s office and the officials of the State Prison met members of the legislature’s judicial committee last week to answer questions about the transfer.

What the legislators have obtained, several have said were estimates and speculation.

The legislators were informed that it was the Governor’s office who approached federal officials with the offer after Trump “made a widespread and widespread appeal that we need more room or something for detainees,” said Deboer, democrat of the officially non -partisan legislature.

The legislators have also been informed of the installation – which was designed to host around 100 but is currently equipped to hold twice – would feed between 200 and 300 prisoners. Current 97 staff from the prison must be recycled and stay.

The costs of the transition would be borne by the State, awaiting that the federal government would reimburse this cost, said Deboer.

An official agreement between the State and the Federal Agency had not yet been signed by Friday.

Asked how much the state should spend on conversion, the agency has declared that “this number has not yet been determined”, but that state expenditure would be reimbursed. The state plans to hire additional employees for the center, said the agency.

A letter signed by 13 legislators questioned if Pillen had the power to unilaterally transfer the use of a state prison to the federal authorities without legislative approval.

To this end, the Senator of the Terrell McKinney State – Chairman of the Urban Affairs Committee of the Legislative Assembly and Vocal Criticism of the overcrowded penitentiary system of Nebraska – summoned a public hearing on Friday to request answers to the office of Pillen and to the Correctional State officials, invoking concerns concerning the violations of the Building Code which come from the Office of the Committee.

“How can you take an installation that was built for 125 people and bring this to a capacity of 200 to 300 people without creating, you know, a risk of security?” Asked McKinney.

Pillen maintains the law of the state gives it the power to move, claiming that the ministry of correctional services is a matter of the aegis of the executive branch. He and officials of the state prison refused to come to the hearing on Friday.

But dozens of residents of Nebraska have attended, most of them opposed to the new ICE detention center.