Nebraska prison reopens as federal immigration center, aims for 200 detainees by Thanksgiving

OMAHA Neb AP A minimum-security state prison in the remote southwest corner of Nebraska reconfigured to serve as a federal immigration detention center began accepting detainees earlier this week Gov Jim Pillen declared Thursday The Republican governor revealed the facility at McCook a remote city of about people in the middle of wide-open prairies between Denver and Omaha had between and immigrant detainees as of Thursday The facility should be at limit as of now by Thanksgiving Pillen noted Work is already set to begin on the second phase of the conversion which would expand the facility to accommodate another beds for a total of he declared I would expect that the second phase will be ready in the first part of the new year he revealed The facility had served as the McCook Work Ethic Camp which had housed around low-level offenders who participated in mentoring healing and work programs to help them transition to life outside prison Prisoners there routinely worked on roads in parks county and city offices and even local schools and the venture was often praised by state leaders as a success story for reducing prisoner recidivism Those low-level offenders have been moved out of the McCook prison Several were paroled placed on probation or exclusively circulated but the majority were sent to other facilities including more than sent to locality corrections in Omaha and Lincoln Dozens of others were sent to other state prisons McCook is about miles kilometers west of Lincoln the state capital McCook leaders and residents were taken by surprise when Pillen stated in August that he was handing the prison over for use by federal officials as part of President Donald Trump s sweeping crackdown on immigration Nebraska and U S Department of Homeland Assurance personnel have dubbed the facility the Cornhusker Clink a play on Nebraska s nickname of the Cornhusker State and an old slang term for jail The alliterative name follows in the vein of the previously revealed Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot detention centers in Florida and the Speedway Slammer in Indiana Particular Nebraska lawmakers have complained that Pillen a Republican acted rashly noting that the state s prison system is already one of the nation s the bulk overcrowded and perpetually understaffed To that end former state Sen DiAnna Schimek and thirteen other McCook residents have sued Pillen and the director of the state prison system saying only the Legislature has the constitutional authority to control or manage state prisons or repurpose the use of citizens buildings The lawsuit filed in state court on the residents behalf by nonprofit legal advocacy group Nebraska Appleseed had sought a temporary injunction to stop the conversion of the McCook prison while the situation plays out but a judge rejected that motion last month Likewise the judge also rejected Pillen s motion to dismiss the development Nearly people were being held in immigration detention by mid-September a increase since January according to the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse About of those detained have no criminal record TRAC says Multiple others have convictions for offenses as minor as a traffic violation Source