ICE Looks for Site for Immigration Detention Center

Recently, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials bet with Joliet City Manager Tom Thanas in Washington D.C. to discuss building an immigration detention center. According to The Chicago Tribune, few details are currently available about the plan.

Thanas himself has yet to comment on the meeting. Joliet Councilwoman Jan Quillman stated, “I don’t know enough about it at this point to offer an informed opinion,” “My understanding is that this is all very preliminary.” Joliet Councilman Bog O’Dekirk added that the council members had only been made aware of the “very, very broad strokes” of the plan.

Plans for a similar facility in Crete, Illinois were abandoned when the Crete Village Board unanimously voted down a proposal to build an immigration detention center on 70 acres of privately owned land. The detention enter would have been privately built by Corrections Corp. of America.  Immigration activists who opposed the facility being built in Crete argued that for-profit operators would be less likely to maintain humane conditions for the immigrants they house.

The article expects similar protests against the potential Joliet facility, although unlike Crete, Joliet was previously home to a Correctional Center and is currently home to a juvenile prison, so the stigma of becoming a “prison town” has likely faded.