Shannon Heffernan, The Marshall Project, Jan. 4, 2025
“Simply earlier than the 2024 presidential election, Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones mentioned that if former President Donald Trump received, he would get again into the “deportation business.” Now, the suburban Ohio sheriff has put aside 250 to 300 beds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees — round a 3rd of Butler County Jail’s capability, in keeping with the Cincinnati Enquirer, and a boon to the county’s income. Overwhelming proof exhibits immigrants are much less more likely to commit crime than individuals born within the U.S. Sheriff Jones himself concedes that immigrants will not be extra vulnerable to crime. Nevertheless, he has echoed Trump’s immigration rhetoric and vowed to do his part to implement Trump’s plans to deport undocumented immigrants. “I consider in Americans first. Those who have blood and sweat into this nation have fought for it, them first. These different international locations aren’t first. We’re,” Jones told WLWT. The detention a part of the “deportation enterprise” may very well be a worthwhile one for Butler County. In 2024, the county revamped $6.7 million renting jail beds to different native and federal authorities businesses, together with the U.S. Marshals and the Bureau of Prisons. Even earlier than Trump’s re-election, Butler County budgeted for a rise in that income to an estimated $8.5 million in 2025, according to the Journal-News. A county commissioner supplied assist for the sheriff’s plans to hire extra beds to ICE: “Clearly, the extra prisoners now we have, the extra income it produces,” Commissioner Don Dixon mentioned. …”
