Other agencies’ use of Hall County’s new jail depends on ICE requirements

The million-dollar mission handed to Hall County Corrections Director Fred Ruiz to bring new money into the county by housing inmates for other agencies is on hold.

Oct. 1 was the date county supervisors wanted Ruiz to have contracts in place to start housing and billing other agencies for holding their inmates.

"That's not going to happen," Ruiz said matter-of-factly last week.

Why?

Because of transportation.

"The transportation requirements were given to us by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), so if I were to go looking for other contracts, I wouldn't be able to provide the transportation requirements for ICE," Ruiz said.

Hall County supervisors during jail bond and budget talks had tossed out the possibility of housing inmates for other Nebraska counties -- the likes of Sarpy, Merrick and Nance. But talks with those counties will wait until the federal contract is in place.

Ruiz said ICE might request three or four trips a week, picking up and dropping off detainees. The trips could be either west or east of Grand Island. In order to meet that demand every week, Ruiz wouldn't have officers available to pick up inmates from other agencies.

"It's not possible to have an ICE contract with transportation clauses and have transportation clauses and housing contracts with other counties," Ruiz said. "I just don't have the staff to do that."

He's hoping he can negotiate some housing-only contracts with area counties, but he needs more information on factors such as number of trips, number of detainees and number of trips in a day for ICE.

"I'm waiting for the transportation details to be finalized so I can move on," Ruiz said.

He has already made some significant training changes for the so-called "transport team" for the coveted ICE contract. The team went to Lexington in August to receive firearms training.

Of the nine officers trained in firearms, the daily transport team will comprise "four or five" members armed with "automatic handguns."

Arming corrections officers is something new to the department, Ruiz said.

Currently, the Sheriff's Department and Corrections Department handle transportation of inmates.

Armed sheriff's deputies haul inmates back and forth to court hearings from out-of-town locations. The Corrections Department typically transports when an inmate is going to another facility for "safe keeping" from other inmates or for medical reasons. The corrections transportation is all done unarmed.

Ruiz said the armament requested by ICE isn't for possible action against the detainees -- who typically aren't facing criminal charges -- they are for protection of the officers against attempts to free the detainees.

"You have the public who might try to facilitate an escape," Ruiz said. "If the public or someone who was facilitating an escape is shooting at the armed guard, I would think they would shoot back."

"It's more about a deterrent than it is about shooting someone," Ruiz said of arming corrections officers.

Not providing transportation at all would be a lot simpler, but it won't bring in the revenue the county needs to help operate the new jail.

"ICE has said, ’If we don't have a transportation contract with you, we don't have a housing contract with you,'" Ruiz said. "You can see why. They are spending so much windshield time taking people back and forth, they want someone else to do that."

ICE would pay a guard rate and mileage fee for the transportation, which Ruiz now hopes will begin in November. He spoke with federal officials in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday and said the new timeline is on track.

"In my discussions with the county board, if we can get something going by November, we're still OK," Ruiz said of the budget.

There shouldn't be any public concern about the detainees being released in Grand Island, Ruiz said.

"My understanding is that most of these detainees are taken on to other locations and shipped out," he said.

But it's still a wait-and-see deal.

"The bottom line to this is that up until about a month ago, we didn't have any idea on what type of transportation requirements ICE would hand to us," Ruiz said. "I need to put everybody else on hold until I get this one done. It boils down to manpower.”