Credit: (NJ Spotlight News)The Essex County jail was no longer housing federal immigration detainees on Tuesday, putting an end to a controversial but lucrative practice that’s drawn protests from immigrant advocates for years.
U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement removed all the detainees that had remained at the Essex County Correctional Facility by noon Tuesday, Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr said in a statement. The county announced in April that it would stop housing detainees for ICE.
“We have always maintained that this was in the best interest of the detainees to remain close to their family, friends, attorneys and community organizations helping them in a facility that was safe and secure,’’ DiVincenzo said. “Our ECCF fulfilled this responsibility very well and we thank ICE for their partnership.”
Emilio Dabul, a spokesman for ICE, confirmed that Essex was no longer accepting ICE detainees. He declined on Tuesday to say where the detainees were moved or whether any of them had been released.
Immigrant advocates have long called for Essex County officials to end their relationship with ICE and to stop profiting from detaining immigrants at the facility in Newark. They also pressed officials to end the practice at other facilities in New Jersey.
Whereabouts of some detainees unknown
On Tuesday, the advocates expressed relief. But they also voiced concerns for the detainees, wondering where they were transferred to and if they were being sent to other states far away from their families and attorneys.
“On the one hand it’s a victory of sorts, because one of the detention centers has been closed, but we know they have transferred a lot of people, so the battle isn’t over,’’ said Giselle Holloway, executive director of First Friends of New Jersey and New York, which sends volunteers to visit immigration detainees.
Hera Mir, spokeswoman for the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said Essex didn’t work with community organizations when vacating the jail of ICE detainees.
“Detention is an unjust and immoral practice. It’s a system that perpetuates and upholds every part of the prison industrial complex through family separations, denial of due process, and loss of community connection and support,’’ she said in a statement. “In the decision to end Essex County’s ICE detention contract, immigrant community partners have been shut out of the process. Essex County may have been a good partner to ICE but not to the communities they are supposed to represent.”
Like Holloway, she also questioned whether Essex County left open the possibility of housing ICE detainees in the future.
Chia Chia Wang, organizing and advocacy director at American Friends Service Committee in Newark, said in the last few months they have had some clients who were at the Essex County jail and the private facility in Elizabeth released with ankle monitors while others were transferred. She said some were transferred to Florida ICE detention sites, while others were sent to other locations, including in the South to facilitate deportation.
First Friends of New Jersey and New York staff was in contact with a man who was held in Essex County and transferred to Nevada in recent weeks, said Jackie Zapata, program director. She said the man was eventually released and is back on the East Coast after being fitted with an ankle bracelet.
ACLU lawsuit
In April, county officials announced that they had asked ICE to remove its detainees from the facility by Aug. 23. The county said it would enter into an agreement with Union County to house its criminal inmates at the jail.
“Sharing services in this manner has helped both Essex and Union face our difficult financial challenges without reducing the level of service,’’ DiVencenzo said.
But during the summer, when ICE began to move the detainees out of the Essex County jail to other states, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal class-action lawsuit that sought to block the long-distance transfers.
A few days later, a federal court judge in Newark rejected the bid for a temporary restraining order that would have stopped ICE from moving the detainees from the Essex County jail to other states.
In the past, Essex County made millions from its agreement with federal immigration officials. Under the Trump administration, the ICE population swelled at the jail to some 800 detainees, leading Essex County to charge the federal agency almost $35 million in 2018.
Besides Essex, in New Jersey ICE detainees are held at county jails in Bergen and Hudson counties. A private detention facility in Elizabeth also holds immigration detainees.
But the future of ICE detention in New Jersey is in question. A measure passed by the Legislature in June and now on Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk, would prohibit state and local agencies as well as private correctional facilities from entering into, renewing or extending agreements with federal immigration authorities to detain immigrants who don’t have authorization to legally live in the United States.
Immigrant advocates are urging the governor to sign the bill, saying the need for it is pressing. Recently, ICE confirmed it had extended its contract with a private prison company that runs the detention facility in Elizabeth through August 2023.
Alyana Alfaro, spokeswoman for the governor, has repeatedly declined comment on the legislation.
