When it comes to ICE detainees, it’s all about the money | Lowry – NorthJersey.com

So now we know, if we didn’t already, what the warehousing of ICE detainees in county jails across New York and New Jersey is all about.

It’s what it’s always been about: the money, of course.

If you didn’t get a chance yet to read it, and if you really want to see political cynicism in all its awful glory, call up my colleague Monsy Alvarado’s report, which shows that last year four counties in the two states collected more than $87 million for housing ICE detainees. 

The piece rolls out the full breadth of the hypocrisy that continues unabated, how county officials across our state are gladly raking in the federal money for housing detainees – people who are, by any measure, our neighbors, our co-workers and our classmates – without so much as blinking an eye.

What makes it all so stomach-churning is that the counties in New Jersey that are “benefiting” the most are three of the most progressive, i.e., staunchly Democratic-controlled, in our state – Bergen, Hudson and Essex.

We’re talking about Democrats in New Jersey who are all for calling out President Donald Trump’s loathsome immigration policies as hard-hearted, at best, and bigoted at worst, when it concerns a Guatemalan child being separated from her parent at the border, while at the same time pocketing cash from the feds to hold immigration detainees.

Johanna Calle, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, states the case about as well as it can be stated.

“These counties’ local leaders can’t insist on profiting off the detention of immigrants and also claim to care about immigrant communities,” she told NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey.

“If they stand with immigrants and against Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, then these ICE contracts cannot be in place, and immigrant detainees should not be suffering the horrible conditions that are continuously reported.”

I’ve been around political types nearly all my journalistic career. They sometimes speak out of both sides of their mouths or wrap themselves up in a thousand knots by over-explaining or backpedaling, or sometimes, by just pure lying.

What we are talking about here, though, is in some ways more insidious. We’re talking about local politicians who are aiding and abetting the Trump policy of running down and locking up nearly anyone who is living in this country without documentation.

One of the excuses, they cite, for taking the ICE money is that the state’s new bail reform laws, which have rightfully moved us away from cash bail, have also served to depopulate our prisons.

This was supposed to be a good thing, remember, for all the moral reasons one might expect.

Lowry: It’s the first week of school. Hug a teacher.

Protests: Catholic demonstrators form human cross in Newark to protest separation of immigrant families

So now, instead of finding new and creative ways to replace the lost revenue, many county officials are just taking the easy route. In some ways, when it comes to ICE, we are now imitating the so-called “moocher states,” those who pay in the least and benefit the most from federal largesse.

And please, spare me this ridiculous rationalization that goes: “well, if we won’t do it, someone else will” or “this way, at least, the detainees can still be close to their loved ones.”

I’m surprised, frankly, that any elected official worth a dime can really say stuff like this with a straight face.

What it boils down, too, in the end, is the money. Lots of money.

Our local elected officials are making their jobs a bit easier by profiting off a morally corrupt enterprise, one that sooner or later is bound to give way.

Bruce Lowry is the editorial page editor for The Record and NorthJersey.com

Read or Share this story: https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/columnists/2019/09/06/opinion-when-comes-ice-detainees-its-all-money-nj-lowry/2225248001/