Local jails suffer as detentions decline
May 11, 2009
Versailles, MO -- Housing illegal immigrants helped Morgan County Sheriff Jim Petty fill his empty jail, hire nearly a dozen new deputies and replace a fleet of run-down police cruisers with newer SUVs.
'When it's all said and done, it's been a great thing for my business,' he said of the county's contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Last year, holding detainees generated 10 percent of the county's budget.
Several communities in Missouri and Illinois gambled on illegal immigration as an economic development tool, using money earned from housing detainees to subsidize operations in their counties, most of which are small and rural. They built or upgraded jails, urged on, they say, by immigration enforcement officials anxious to find space to house a growing number of detainees.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
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