OGDEN — The U. S. immigration government is potentially interested in creating a detention center in Utah for immigrants facing deportation, and Weber County Sheriff Ryan Arbon believes a vacant jail in Ogden could be a strong candidate .
Arbon said his office has been in communication with officials from U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, about the issue and that federal officials even visited Ogden to read about the Kiesel facility, located next to the Ogden municipal building in downtown. . The structure, now largely vacant, was built in 1983 and served as the Weber County Jail before finishing touches on the existing jail in 2000 at 1400 Depot Road.
“Our criminal Kiesel has to pass an inspection through them in order to move forward,” said Arbon, who traveled to the Arizona-Mexico border in May to better see the flow of migrants seeking to enter the United States. to know the prestige or effects of their inspection. We’re waiting. “
Regardless, the U. S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE officials are potentially interested in locating an immigration detention center in Utah, whether in Ogden or somewhere else. On May 30, the two agencies issued a “Request for Information,” or RFI, to identify conceivable detention sites in and around Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Harlingen, Texas, for “noncitizens and immigration offenders. “
An ICE representative didn’t say much about the discussion about the detention center, but under pressure that the data doesn’t mean a final resolution has been made. The agency’s request “is for data and planning purposes only and does not constitute a request for proposal, nor does it limit the government to any procurement approach,” said Alethea Smock, an ICE spokeswoman. Proposals were due on June 23.
Regardless, Gov. Spencer Cox said at his regular news conference in May that he was open to establishing a detention center in Utah, in part to avoid having to send immigrants facing deportation to Nevada, where the largest ICE facilities are located. near Utah. Debate has intensified in Utah, as in the rest of the country, over how to deal with immigrants who have entered the United States illegally or who do not have permanent legal standing here.
“We’d like to have a garage here, and we’ve made several donations to make it less difficult, so there’s this transportation delay,” Cox said. At least at the May 16 press conference, he said federal officials had rejected Utah’s proposals.
Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith, head of the Utah Sheriffs’ Association, said Tuesday that he has sensed a change in tone from ICE officials since a recent assembly with Utah leaders, adding that Cox: “In the last few weeks, they’ve begun to show interest,” Smith said. who, like Arbon, conducted his own investigation on the Arizona-Mexico border in April and is sensitive to the issue.
But despite the obvious interest in the Ogden facility, Smith also noted that ICE officials have shown little to no interest in other proposed sites in Utah, adding a dismantled criminal in Daggett County. “It’s probably a little bit of a stretch, but if they really want to need a detention center in Utah, this is their chance,” Smith said.
According to the RFI from ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, the agencies are leading the way for an 850- to 900-bed facility that can house low- to high-security noncitizen adults. It may only be publicly owned and operated, and the amenities in the Salt Lake City domain would serve Utah, Idaho, Montana and Nevada.
Arbon said the Ogden detention center, if plans were carried out, would first be subject to scrutiny by the government and local residents. Additionally, the allocation would be funded entirely through the federal government and would not require any local money. Smith suspects that such a facility would likely make room for those facing only immigration offenses and others facing deportation who have served their sentences in other U. S. prisons or criminal prisons.
Housing detained immigrants in local jails is a thorny issue in light of the demands of the federal government’s position on local law enforcement officials. To space out immigrants with immigration violations for more than two or three days, the federal government prohibits mixing immigrants with classic detainees accused or convicted in criminal cases.
In the late 2010s, officials in Evanston, Wyoming, near the Utah state line, debated the structure of an immigration detention center. But CoreCivic, a private company, has subsidized a questionable 1,000-bed proposal that appeared in spring 2020, according to WyoFile, a Wyoming news agency. Gary Welling, director of economic progress for Uinta County, Wyoming, has not heard of any efforts since then to revive discussions about detention centers, he said Tuesday.