By:Cindy Gonzalez
Nebraska Examiner
Nebraska Corrections officials update McCook leaders on plans
McCOOK, Neb. — Business has slumped at the Carniceria CB mini market and Mexican restaurant, its owners said, since Gov. Jim Pillen’s announcement last month that Nebraska is bringing a federal immigration detention facility to town.
Miguel and Mayra Camacho said they’ve heard other area merchants describe similar commercial declines. Some Latinos they know have uprooted from southwest Nebraska, spurred by what the couple believes is fear and uneasiness over an increased ICE presence.
“And it’s not even open yet,” said Miguel Camacho, of the facility branded the “Cornhusker Clink” by federal officials. “Of all the 50 states, why here?”
‘People want to know’
Comments the Camachos made this week from their Carniceria — a few miles from where a state prison that holds up to 200 beds is being converted into a 300-bed ICE jail — reflected the sentiment of dozens who spoke against the project during a Friday hearing at the Capitol so full it required an overflow area.
The meeting was hosted by the Legislature’s Urban Affairs Committee. Chairman Terrell McKinney of Omaha offered the space after the chair of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee declined to hold a public hearing, calling the request premature.
McKinney, a member of both committees, said that while he had been offered a private briefing by the Pillen administration, he opted for a broader discussion open to the public.
He and other committee members said they were concerned about scant information shared about the state-federal plan to repurpose the McCook-based Work Ethic Camp into an ICE detention center for migrants. The state is still trying to relocate the camp’s remaining 155 inmates to different state prisons. Officials said they expect to start housing federal detainees in October.
“Our people want to know, and they’re asking,” said State Sen. Victor Rountree of Bellevue, who also sits on both committees.
“What happens is that when there’s no information provided, negativity and misinformation run rampant,” said State Sen. Stan Clouse of Kearney, the lone Republican committee member who attended the hearing.
On Friday afternoon, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services issued a statement saying that Corrections Director Rob Jeffreys had spoken Thursday with McCook Mayor Linda Taylor and City Manager Nate Schneider about public safety and community impact.
Among the answers Corrections said it provided:
- The converted ICE detention center will house an adult population with minor criminal records and nonviolent felonies.
- Up to 65 staff positions will be added, all state positions, including additional medical personnel.
- The state is exploring options for electronic translation services to assist non-English speaking detainees.
- A perimeter fence and intruder petition system will be added, as well as armed patrols around the perimeter.
A formal contract between Nebraska and the federal government is still being hammered out, Correctional Services officials said.
Four hours of testimony
At the four-hour Urban Affairs hearing, about 40 people testified, none in support of the prison conversion that many worry could exacerbate state prison crowding elsewhere to accommodate the feds’ deportation push.
Many said they were embarrassed. Some choked back tears. Others said they were angry to learn in news reports that the state had invited the Trump administration to consider Nebraska for such a facility.
Not present were members of the Pillen administration, which told the committee in a Thursday letter it would not participate, arguing that the the Judiciary Committee and not the Urban Affairs Committee had the legal jurisdiction and oversight authority to examine the issues at hand. Pillen’s staff did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
McKinney said he plans to ask the Judiciary Committee chair once again to hold a public hearing that he hopes Pillen’s staff would attend.
Kenny Zoeller, Pillen’s policy research director, wrote in the Thursday’s letter that McKinney had wrongly suggested that the future migrant population at the center would trigger an overcrowding of the correctional system. Zoeller wrote that an emergency declaration is required when the prison population systemwide is over 140% of operational capacity. He said the average now is about 115%.
“We have flexibility within our current corrections facilities to accommodate this new mission,” Zoeller wrote.
Spike Eickholt, representing ACLU Nebraska, said Nebraska leaders for a decade have debated what to do about state prison crowding. Currently, Nebraska is building a new $310 million-plus prison in Lincoln.
“Why are we committing to an investment of a new prison while giving up a current one?” he asked.
Other speakers lamented the loss of the Work Ethic Camp’s rehabilitative focus and programming aimed at transitioning criminal offenders for successful re-entry into society.
Nebraska’s role in deportation
But most of Friday’s testimony centered on Nebraska’s role in Trump’s push for mass deportations. Pillen has said he is proud to be part of the president’s effort to “make sure we keep our community safe.”
“This stuff hits close to home and hits every corner of this state and country,” the governor has said.
Holly Burns said her grandparents, Jose Flores Arsiaga and Margarita Martinez Arsiaga, farmed in Mitchell, Neb., and raised an extended family that’s part of the state’s rich history and multicultural landscape.
“Are we willing to risk that and be made a joke nationally as the ‘Cornhusker Clink’ — for money that we may or may not get — and that breaks all values of Nebraska?” she asked.
Guillermo Enrique Peña Valladares of Grand Island said he comes from a family of immigrants and that federal enforcement tactics have created anxiety and intimidation even among those legally in the country for generations.
“Should I fear saying my name?” he asked, voice cracking. He said his family works in meatpacking plants and his mom speaks broken English. “Every day we have to ask ourselves, ‘Are we going to be alright?’”
As his family’s first college graduate, Peña said, he felt a responsibility to speak out.
“You are trying to imprison the agricultural hands of Nebraska. They are already battered and bruised,” he said.
Anne Wurth, associate legal director of the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement, said a worry is the “lack of planning” and demeaning behavior by ICE toward migrants.
She said her nonprofit saw it first hand, representing several of the 78 workers detained in the June 10 immigration raid at Omaha’s Glenn Valley Foods. Wurth described, for example, the early 48 hours when some families did not know where relatives were being held and said some wounds went untreated.
“Their goal is to terrorize immigrants,” she said of the federal government. “They continue to demean and dehumanize a population that is integral to the state of Nebraska … We must not do this for them.”
‘Pissed off grandmas’
Don Hooper, a retired educator, was among several who decried the politics. He said he does not want “Cornhusker Clink” to join Nebraska’s “good life” and “home of Arbor Day” signs on the highway.
If the facility comes, he said: “It should be named … ‘Pillen’s prison’ in honor of the individual who wants this in Nebraska.”
McKinney said he appreciated a petition opposing the immigration detention center coordinated by Nebraska Appleseed, as it reflected statewide opinions. Appleseed’s Ruby Mendez said the effort collected more than 18,000 signatures from people in nearly 400 Nebraska communities.
Faith Colburn said she drove in from North Platte with concerns about legal and other services that migrants would have available in McCook.
“I’m here representing 50 people,” she said. “Many of them are furious, pissed off grandmas.”
About 650 people also submitted written testimony to the Urban Affairs committee. Because it was for an interim hearing, McKinney said, the correspondence had not been categorized into opponents, proponents or neutral.
Carniceria survival plan
In McCook, Miguel and Mayra Camacho said they would not close shop, and hope that business picks up.
The family’s move six years ago from Kansas to the Nebraska community of about 7,200 people was calculated, they said. The area has a Walmart and other key stores that draw residents of surrounding towns.
Their two kids attend local schools, and have felt a sting from the proposed ICE facility. A classmate asked their daughter if she had seen her “new house,” said Camacho.
The small business owners said they are trying to form a group to provide information and support to Latinos in the community. They said they’ve enjoyed the McCook area and their patrons.
The couple rode out the COVID-19 slump, opening the Carniceria’s doors every day. Gesturing toward the empty store and restaurant, Camacho said the plan now is to do the same: “Stay here, protect it, survive.”
He added, ‘If the community tells me I’m not welcome, we’ll move.”