Testifiers blast Pillen's plans for McCook ICE detention center

Nebraskans packed a Capitol hearing room Friday to oppose Gov. Jim Pillen’s plans to turn the McCook Work Ethic Camp into an ICE detention center.

For nearly four hours Friday, dozens of testifiers criticized Pillen’s proposal, which would turn the low-security McCook Work Ethic Camp into a holding facility for people who Immigration and Customs Enforcement intends to deport. No one testified in support of the proposal.

Many of the testifiers called the planned facility inconsistent with Nebraska values. Among them was Leonor Fuhrer of Norfolk, who said her parents were Mexican immigrants and now citizens.

“Instead of sowing division and harvesting hate through creating inhumane and horrible detention centers, why not be a state that demands and amplifies the need for immigration reform?” she asked.

Another testifier, Gary Heusel, said he worked with international visitors, and sarcastically criticized ICE for using masked agents. “The fact that we've got ICE agents, disguised as bank robbers, pulling people off the street and now we're going to volunteer to detain them in Nebraska? Nebraska nice?” he asked.

Doug Koebernick, inspector general for Corrections, testified that there are still many unanswered questions, including where the men currently at the camp will go, whether the programs they currently receive will be available, and whether women also be housed at the new ICE facility. Sen. Stan Clouse of Kearney, a Republican, lamented the lack of information.

“Some of that lack of information becomes misinformation, which becomes rumors, which becomes chaos,” Clouse said.

Koebernick said the facility was designed to house 100 people, and currently houses about 155, mainly men on their way from more secure prisons to community corrections work-release facilities or on their way to being released. The Department of Correctional Services says some spaces in McCook will be reconfigured, and the facility will hold up to 300 people.

Spike Eickholt, representing ACLU Nebraska, said the prison system currently has an “operational capacity” of about 5,000 people, but contains about 5,800. “Operational capacity” in turn is 25% higher than the number of people the prisons were originally designed to hold.

“The decision the governor has made is to essentially take one of the prisons offline, to close it down for state purposes,” Eickholt said. He noted that the state is currently in the process of building a new prison, adding, “One fundamental question we would urge this committee to ask is, why are we committing to an investment of a new prison system while giving up a current one?”

Tim Knight, who said he is a retired therapist who worked in Nebraska prisons, said President Donald Trump has said he is deporting the “worst of the worst,” and Pillen has described deportees as dangerous criminals, gang members and terrorists.

“Is it any wonder why McCook is concerned?” Knight asked.

Local officials have raised questions about the plans, including how the public will be protected. Friday afternoon, the Department of Correctional Services issued a news release saying the facility would house “an adult population with minor criminal records and nonviolent felonies.”

The department also said a perimeter fence and other security measures would be added, and about 65 additional staff members would be hired.

Friday’s hearing was called by Sen. Terrell McKinney, chair of the Urban Affairs Committee and the only Democrat to head a standing committee in the officially nonpartisan Legislature.

Although invited, no representatives of Republican Gov. Pillen’s administration attended what a governor’s press release called a “Democrats Interim Study,” contending the committee lacked jurisdiction, which belonged to the Judiciary Committee.

Twelve Democratic senators and one independent had called for a public hearing by the Judiciary Committee. But Judiciary Chair Sen. Carolyn Bosn declared the request “premature,” and advised senators to pose any questions they had to the governor or attorney general directly. Administration officials subsequently briefed Judiciary Committee members in private. McKinney, who missed that briefing, said he did not want a private briefing. McKinney said he still hopes Pillen administration officials will testify publicly, adding that legislation touching on the subject could be introduced in January.