1,500 Holding center fo illegal immigrants? [e-mail]

[surfermaw]

Source: CLEVE R. WOOTSON JR. AND ANN DOSS HELMS

1,500 BEDS
Holding center for
illegal immigrants?
Facility would ease strains on jails
CLEVE R. WOOTSON JR. AND ANN DOSS HELMS
[e-mail]
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Federal immigration officials want to build a 1,500-bed detention facility in Mecklenburg County to house illegal immigrants before they're deported.

The facility would ease the strain on the county's overcrowded jails, where 500 inmates sleep on the floor every night.

The center -- the first in the country -- could open in less than two years and would be the final stop for illegal immigrants from the South and Mid-Atlantic regions, Mecklenburg Sheriff Jim Pendergraph said.

It would be built and owned by a private developer and leased by the county, which would bill the federal government for each inmate who spends the night. Pendergraph said it was unclear how long it would take the developer to recoup the capital costs.

The news of the holding center comes five months after the U.S. Department of Justice announced plans to open an immigration court in Charlotte. The court is scheduled to open early next year.

Pendergraph said he and U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Charlotte Republican, traveled to Washington twice this year to lobby for the detention facility. He received a letter of intent from officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement this month.

They said, "If you build it, we'll come," Pendergraph said.

"They're so short on space," he said, "they would even bring prisoners from as far as New York."




Read more: http://www.charlotte.com/local/story/236837.html

[High Plains]

1. Just what America needs: More jails.

Sheesh.

[Barrett808]

2. Google "Operation Endgame"

You'll like the results.

[thunder rising]

3. You never hear of jails being close for lack of inmates....

Just say'n.

[Demeter]

4. Michigan's Talking of Closing Them for Lack of Operating Funds, Though

and reducing sentences for non-violent offenses. Some sanity at last!

[Robson]

5. Jails, but for employers, landlords and money changers

Send them back to where from they came from. We can not and should not jail these people. The answer is to jail their employers, their landlords, their bankers and the money changers.

[badgervan]

6. Why "Hold" Illegals?

Draw up a contract with a bus company, when you have enough to fill the bus, off you go to Mexico. Seems a helluva lot cheaper and faster - and the word will get out real quickly what's happening.