More than 200 people packed into an elementary school in Tucson Thursday night to hear more about the possibility of an ICE detention center coming to the nearby town of Marana.
Community members spent almost two hours bringing comments and questions about that possibility to a panel of legal groups during a town hall meeting moderated by Pima County Supervisor Jenn Allen.
Military veteran Joanna Ryan said she spent 10 years as a correctional officer at Tucson’s federal prison.
“This is bad for Tucson, this isn’t what Tucson represents as a people,” she said. “The inhumane treatment and conditions, and increased violence from, and against, staff and those detainees, poor health care … many of these are one-sided issues, or thought to be, on that side of the detainees themselves, however, these conditions come around to even the workers.”
Clement DeLarge, another U.S. veteran who has lived in Marana for more than 30 years, said he worries there’s a lack of due process for immigrants now, and he thinks a detention center will bring more ICE agents to local schools and churches.
“That’s going to change everything for everybody around here if it does. You know, it’s not what they’re doing, it’s how they’re doing it. And I think that’s everyone’s concern,” he said.
DeLarge said he thinks more people would have shown up from Marana if they knew about the event. During the town hall, he said hoped the community would have had more time and notice about this possibility.
But, as the panelists said, much of what’s next is unknown. Though Marana’s leaders have said they’ve been approached by Management & Training Corporation about zoning and other requirements needed for a detention center, the corporation hasn’t yet confirmed what it intends to do with the Marana facility. The Utah-based company runs both prisons and ICE detention centers around the U.S.
Tucsonan Maximiliano Torres told the crowd he thought Trump’s deportation campaign harkened back to the days of Arizona’s SB1070 — the now-defunct state law that tasked local law enforcement with immigration enforcement.
“They criminalized coming across the border without authorization, which is a civil misdemeanor, it’s not a criminal act,” he said. “They turned it into a criminal act, so they could justify putting those people in prison and forcing the federal government to pay private prisons.”
Torres said he wanted politicians profiting from private prisons to see more public pressure.
Immigration attorney and panelist Mo Goldman said the detention center would be opening amid a backdrop of an overburdened immigration system with some 4 million cases in deportation proceedings pending — all being managed by just several hundred immigration judges.
“Who actually pays for the detainment of these individuals?” Goldman asked the crowd. “All of us, we pay for that, it’s not just money that comes just from nowhere, and the people who profit from them are traditionally these private prisons.”
Marana City Council member Patrick Cavanaugh said he came to the event to hear from constituents, but ultimately the town can’t stop the operation from going through.
“So there’s really nothing we can do, and that’s what’s really frustrating about this. You know, we can see the frustration of the community, but we really can’t do anything about it,” he said.
Local leaders said this week’s town hall was one of what could be several similar events.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been modified to correct the name of Management & Training Corporation, the private contractor that bought the prison.
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