County governments controlled entirely by Democrats in the most liberal parts of New Jersey are making a windfall off of President Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement, collecting $6 million a month from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants in its county jails.
From January 2015 to March 2018 the amount of ICE money sent to Bergen, Essex and Hudson Counties increased 46 percent, amounting to more than $150 million over that period, according to invoices provided to WNYC by the counties. As many as 2,000 immigrants are in the county jails at any given time pending deportation proceedings. Some stay incarcerated for years.
At the Bergen County Correctional Facility, most of the residents are no longer criminals waiting for trial but immigrants waiting for deportation hearings. In Hudson County, about half of the inmates are immigrants. And in Essex County, ICE paid the correctional facility nearly $3 million just for the month of May — nearly double what it was getting each month during the Obama administration.
Local officials view the immigrants as a source of revenue that helps to control property taxes. Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, who was once described as the "Jack Welsh of correctional facilities" for monetizing inmates, has long promised that the ICE contract would "reduce the financial burden on our taxpayers." He did not reply to a request for comment, and officials in other counties declined to talk on the record about their contracts.
Essex and Hudson, according to the most recent ICE data analyzed by Citylab, have the second and third highest number of detainees in the country among the more than 100 county jails with ICE contracts.
Bergen County technically contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service, but bills ICE for the $110 it is paid per detainee, per day. Essex's contract with ICE pays out $117 for each immigrant's daily stay.
And Hudson's agreement is actually with a precursor agency to ICE — the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which no longer exists. That contract — for just $77 per inmate — expired in January. An attorney with Hudson County government said a new contract is currently being negotiated and is close to finalization.
These federal contracts pre-date the Trump administration, but they are newly controversial because the immigrants now being targeted by ICE for detention are no longer just undocumented people who committed crimes. Those held at county jails include asylum seekers who landed at local airports and declared that they faced persecution back home. There are those who crossed the southern border with their children, only to be separated from their kids and transported to New Jersey where there are more beds. Some in the county jails overstayed their visas but did not commit other crimes.
Recently, as WNYC reported, a legal permanent resident who already served a probation sentence for a years-old criminal conviction was sent to jail in New Jersey. Even unaccompanied minors separated from their parents are transferred to New Jersey jails as soon as they turn 18.
And since the Justice Department recently directed immigration judges to no longer offer bond, more immigrants must remain locked up until their hearings instead of released with a promise to return to court.
New Jersey is a convenient place to house those arrested by ICE in New York City because the agency lacks a detention center there. The closest are the county jails just across the Hudson River in Northern New Jersey. ICE also has facilities in Elizabeth, NJ and Orange County, NY, and it contracts with other jails, including those in Suffolk and Albany counties.
Elsewhere, counties have more limited arrangements with ICE. They agree to hold immigrants charged with crimes for a short period of time until ICE agents can arrange transportation to a detention facility. The three New Jersey county contracts, however, are much more comprehensive.
But despite the national uproar over President Trump's immigration policies, and the fact that these counties voted for Hillary Clinton by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, there's been relatively little attention to the detention contracts with ICE. Last year, facing public pressure, Hudson County pulled out of an agreement to deputize corrections officers to assist ICE, and yet its ongoing effort to renew its contract to house immigrants at the jail is passing without much notice.
One explanation is that elected Democrats avoid criticizing the ICE arrangements with the county jails because the revenue helps to balance their budgets. When Democratic politicians protest Trump immigration policies, they head to Elizabeth, NJ, to the site of the privately-run ICE detention center that actually houses fewer immigrants than any of the nearby counties.
Another explanation comes from Sally Pillay, program director at First Friends of New York and New Jersey, which dispatches volunteers to visit immigrant detainees in local facilities. She said while her group wants all ICE contracts eliminated, she is concerned about the immigrants at the jails in New Jersey if that happens.
"We care about the plight of individuals incarcerated, and we believe if the facilities are closed in New Jersey, then ICE will transfer individuals to remote locations where there is no access to advocates holding ICE and facilities accountable to the conditions," she said. "These individuals will suffer more without support."
Advocates also said that in New York and New Jersey, immigrants are more likely to be able to meet with their attorneys and relatives if they're detained in nearby facilities.
The Bergen County executive, Jim Tedesco, made a similar argument to the Bergen Record last week. He called Trump's immigration policies "disgraceful and un-American," and said the contract with ICE is not an endorsement of the president.
The Democratic sheriff of Albany, NY, Craig Apple, characterized his decision last month to begin accepting immigrants at $119 per day as altruistic. "I think we've proven ourselves to be an agency that cares about helping people," Apple said. "These folks were going to be sent somewhere, and chances are if nobody stepped up they could have been placed in one of the tent cities being set up...They will be in an air-conditioned wing and getting help with access to free legal services."
Meanwhile, other counties are in the process of terminating their contracts with ICE — including in red Texas. Pressure to do the same may be mounting in New Jersey. In Essex County last month, eight people were reportedly arrested after blocking the entrance to the county government building and demanding to meet with DiVincenzo, the county executive.
Another protest is planned before the Essex County freeholder meeting in Newark on Wednesday night.
Correction on 7/11/18 at 4:15 p.m.: This story has been edited to clarify the comment from Sally Pillay.