Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson has proposed using the county jail in Omaha to hold people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The nation’s oldest Hispanic civil rights organization said its name has been inaccurately tied to the proposal.
The national chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) raised concerns this week after the group was cited in Hanson’s proposal. The sheriff wrote that previous conversations with LULAC leaders about the concept were “all positive and focused on identifying smart common ground and collaboration.”
LULAC spokesman David Cruz called that assertion and the use of LULAC’s name in the proposal “inappropriate, unauthorized and premature.”
“For the name LULAC to be used during the decision-making process, as if to lend credibility or weight to the process and the outcome, is inaccurate,” Cruz said.
The proposal
Hanson’s idea for an ICE partnership came in the form of an open letter to the Douglas County Board on Tuesday. In the letter, Hanson made both humanitarian and financial arguments in support of an ICE detention contract.
Keeping detainees in a local facility would mean keeping them closer to their families, lawyers and support systems. They could also avoid hourslong transport across the state for legal proceedings, Hanson wrote.
“Ultimately, we cannot control what the federal government does,” Hanson wrote. “What we can control is retaining our neighbors and shared constituents within our community as they navigate their due process.”
Financially, the federal partnership would result in millions of dollars of revenue, potentially up to $6.5 million per year, according to Hanson’s letter.
An ICE partnership in Douglas County would require authorization from the County Board of Commissioners.
In a statement shared Thursday, Board Chairman Roger Garcia said the board has not discussed a potential ICE contract and does not “anticipate such an item coming before the Board any time in the foreseeable future.”
Hanson said he’s ultimately trying to start a discussion.
“There’s many opinions with regard to ICE and immigration laws and all of those opinions have value in the public discourse, but those opinions do not counter the fact that detentions are going to occur,” Hanson said. “What can be potentially controlled is detention and having infrastructure in place for individuals to navigate the system.”
Conversations with LULAC
In a statement shared with his letter, Hanson said his office and the Nebraska chapter of LULAC had engaged in an open and respectful conversation about detention practices, but the organization made clear that it does not support or advocate for any contractual agreement between Douglas County and ICE.
“LULAC’s role is not to facilitate detention,” said Elsa R. Aranda, LULAC Nebraska state director. “Our role is to ensure that if detention occurs, it happens under humane, fair, and transparent conditions — and that the rights and dignity of every person are protected, just as the Sheriff is proposing.”
The joint statement continued, asserting that both the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and LULAC Nebraska have expressed interest in continuing dialogue.
Cruz said LULAC’s national board doesn’t take the use of its name lightly. LULAC’s national president and advisor did take a meeting with Hanson and his chief deputy at a conference in Dallas, but Cruz said the idea was passed along to the group’s attorneys with no official stance shared.
“We are the oldest and the largest and the only Latino civil rights organization that has standing in federal court, because we have members all across the country,” Cruz said. “I would say to the sheriff that he may want to think twice before he uses the name of LULAC again without the express written permission of the national board and the national president.”
Discussions of a Douglas County partnership with ICE come weeks after another Nebraska prison made national headlines. Officials announced in August that a minimum-security prison in McCook will be converted into an ICE detention facility dubbed the “Cornhusker Clink.”
In addition to the new detention center, the Nebraska State Patrol entered a 287(g) partnership with ICE under the Task Force Model. That will allow six designated, trained troopers to interrogate suspected noncitizens about their immigration status and make immigration arrests without a warrant.