Outside the Butler County Jail, a neon yellow sign reads ‘Illegal Aliens Here’ with an arrow pointing at the facility.
Sheriff Richard Jones put it on display shortly after he was first elected to his role in 2004. He said it still holds true today.
“Everybody is a border state right now,” Jones said. “Every county, every city … because they don't stay on the border, they come here.”
President Donald Trump has vowed that his presidency will be defined by a mass deportation of people in the U.S. without legal status. In order to follow through on that pledge, he needs the help of sheriffs, like Jones, to hold those people before they are deported. Local sheriffs across the state are working with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to aid in Trump’s goals.
“The [federal government] depends on sheriffs and county jails to have bed space,” he said.
The need for jail space
While the federal government enforces immigration law, they don’t have the necessary jail space to detain deportees on their own. So, Jones, and other sheriffs, enter into contracts with ICE to allow their jails to house people arrested for lacking legal status.
Jones first worked with ICE during the Obama administration and Trump’s first term. He stopped his contract under the Biden administration, and then re-upped it again in March. Since then, it hasn’t taken long for Butler County’s jail cells to fill up.
“Ten weeks ago, I had zero ICE prisoners. Today, I have 250,” Jones said in mid-April.
At the start of the year, just two Ohio jails, in Geauga and Seneca counties, housed ICE detainees. Combined, they averaged space for around 120 ICE detainees, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
Now, the state has at least four times the capacity. Mahoning County, Butler County, Northeast Ohio Correctional Center and the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio have all offered up bed space to ICE – some for the first time.
Sheriffs are split on the benefits
The Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio (CCNO) board voted earlier this year to house ICE detainees. The federal government pays the regional jail $117 a night, plus the cost of transportation, according to CCNO.
That’s a good deal more than what the five local counties pay for bed space, according to Lucas County Sheriff Michael Navarre.
“They're going to make money off it and it helps the bottom line. There's no question about that,” Navarre said.
Still, Navarre voted against the agreement. He was one of the only no votes on CCNO’s 10 person board. He said he believed it was morally wrong.
“I'm not opposed to deporting those that come into our country illegally,” Navarre said. “However, I have yet to see anyone offer a solution to the problem that is being created all over the country today with children being separated from their families.”
Williams County Sheriff Tom Kochert, another CCNO board member, voted in support of the ICE contract. In a statement to the Ohio Newsroom, he said he believes the jail is doing what’s “right”, fitting” and “proper.”
“My firm belief is that President Trump and Secretary Noehm [sic] are on the right track regards our Border security. I have reached out to ICE and offered any material, tangible, or intangible resources I can provide to assist them in this mission,” a part of the statement read. “Housing federal inmates has been the norm for us, and most regional jails for several years, so this is not a new venture.”
Changes in ICE priorities
Immigration experts say local jail space is integral to carrying out ICE’s new priorities to deport all people without legal status.
Under the Biden Administration, some immigrants given deportation orders weren’t a high priority for enforcement. Emily Brown, with Ohio State University’s immigration law clinic, said they might have kids living in the U.S. or maybe their home country didn’t accept deportees. So, they weren’t deported.
Now, Brown said those caveats aren’t relevant anymore.
“Essentially all of the things that you know people think might make you safe from getting deported, like not having a criminal record or having compelling family circumstances,” Brown said. “All of those things are just going to be less important to the administration because they have essentially indicated that anyone that they can deport, they want to deport.”
But there has been difficulty determining who those people are. The Trump administration has changed its position on visa status for a number of people.
“They want to deport people who are here without status. They are also trying to create more people without status,” Brown said.
Trump ordered the end of humanitarian parole for some migrants. A preliminary injunction has been placed on the order. Still, the Department of Homeland Security said the directives are essential to empower law enforcement to protect communities.
“The Biden-Harris Administration abused the humanitarian parole program to indiscriminately allow 1.5 million migrants to enter our country. This was all stopped on day one of the Trump Administration. This action will return the humanitarian parole program to its original purpose of looking at migrants on a case-by-case basis,” the DHS statement read.
Immigrants rights advocates raise concerns
Some immigrant rights organizations are pushing back. The ACLU of Ohio and Ohio Immigrant Alliance issued a statement urging sheriffs not to participate in federal immigration enforcement.
Lynn Tramonte, with the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, said it's wrong to jail immigrants who haven’t committed a criminal offense. Entering into the country illegally is a civil violation, according to immigration lawyer Brown. Nearly half of those detained by ICE in the U.S. do not have criminal violations as of May 4 of this year, according to TRAC.
Plus, Tramonte said, if the detainees aren’t treated humanely, it could end up costing some Ohio communities.
“It's very reckless for Butler County and for the taxpayers of Butler County to give Sheriff Jones this authority. They're going to pay for it in lawsuits. It's inevitable,” she said.
The Butler County jail was sued in 2020 by former ICE detainees for civil rights violations. Tramonte said her organization has developed a hotline for people who are detained to report abuses.
Litigation is still pending, but Sheriff Jones says all accusations of mistreatment are categorically false.
“None of it’s true,” Jones said. “It doesn't matter if it's ICE or anything else. It's called vicarious liability. I'm responsible for all my 500 employees. So I get sued, and it's part of the job. I don't know anybody in this type of work that doesn't have lawsuits.”
Committed to deportation
Jones doesn’t see a downside to working with ICE. The contracts help pay the bills and, more importantly, he said, help protect his community. He wants to help with Trump’s deportation goals.
“They've got twenty million people supposedly in this country that they want out. I don't know that they can get to 20 million in four years, but I think they're going to try and we're going do our part.”
The Pew Research Center, which compiles estimates on the size of this population, puts the unauthorized immigrant population at closer to 11 million.
Jones is committed to aiding their deportation. He’s also working with ICE to train his deputies to enforce immigration law.
