LINCOLN — Nebraska’s McCook prison for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees is now operational, with the first migrants having arrived this week, Gov. Jim Pillen confirmed last Thursday.

Pillen said he expects the first phase of about 200 beds to be full by Thanksgiving “as detainees are coming in each day.” He said the facility, used previously as the state’s Work Ethic Camp for men, continues to be renovated for a second phase of about 100 additional ICE detainees and will include adult men and women.

“There is work that just got approved for the bid with the federal government, and I would expect that the second phase will be ready in the first part of the new year,” Pillen said.

He offered the update last Thursday at an unrelated news conference, telling reporters he had talked this week to McCook Mayor Linda Taylor.

A group of McCook residents led by former State Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln have filed legal action to stop the center from serving as an ICE hub. A Red Willow County District Court judge denied a request to halt the project while the case works through the judicial process.

A spokesman for American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska said advocates meanwhile are on alert and will monitor the access migrants at the McCook center have to legal counsel, health care and language services as they await or fight deportation proceedings.

ACLU spokesman Sam Petto lamented that “Nebraska has signed up to be part of a mass detention and deportation program” that advocates have seen “separate families, violate people’s rights and create fear in our communities.”

He referred to a high-profile ICE-led worksite immigration raid in Omaha in June, saying that South Omaha merchants and families continue to feel negative impact and fear of increased ICE presence.

Attorneys from ACLU, the Omaha-based Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement and more stepped in to help many of the more than 70 undocumented workers detained during that raid. Those migrants were held in a Lincoln County jail in North Platte, in space leased by ICE. Immigrant advocates expect access to be worse in the state-federal McCook facility.

“This is a bizarre set up of a state-owned and -operated ICE detention center,” said Petto. “We’re going to make sure, as best we can, that people’s rights are respected inside that facility and that there is access to counsel and that there is appropriate oversight.”

He said many questions remain about the McCook facility and that access will be “stress tested” over the next few months.

At least some of the ICE detainees in McCook came or are coming from the Polk County jail in Iowa, Petto said. Information on who is being held at the facility is less forthcoming than in county jails, he said.

Last Thursday, a spokesperson for Nebraska Corrections said inquiries regarding detainees should be directed to the federal ICE media office. She also said that, for security reasons, the state’s renovation plans would not be shared at this time.

Last Monday, Pillen had said he expected the McCook facility to start accepting its first detainees that week. He and others are calling the repurposed facility the “Cornhusker Clink,” a place the governor described as a Midwestern hub for ICE.

About 186 male state prisoners had been held at the state’s low-security Work Ethnic Camp, receiving rehabilitative programming and performing work in the community before Nebraska officials reached out to the Trump administration to offer ICE detention space.

The planned conversion of the facility was announced Aug. 19. The WEC inmates have since been transferred to other state facilities, with a small portion discharged or paroled.

Pillen’s office has estimated the contract with the feds would annually net Nebraska about $14.25 million. The Work Ethic Camp had an annual operating cost of $10.2 million. ICE has also agreed to also pay Nebraska a one-time lump sum of $5.9 million for “facility renovations.”

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/midwest-ice-hub-in-mccook-now-operat...