Transparency needed on federal detainees

From 2013 to 2017, the federal government gave Ohio cities and counties more than $24.4 million for jailing people accused by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of breaking U.S. immigration laws. Among those lockups are Geauga County’s, in Chardon, and Butler County’s, in Hamilton, north of Cincinnati, cleveland.com’s Eric Heisig and Robin Goist recently reported. Geauga County initially failed to reveal the full amount that ICE had paid it since 2013, causing cleveland. com’s Goist to file a public records complaint in the Ohio Court of Claims. However, on Friday, before that complaint was adjudicated, the county provided the missing figures, revealing ICE had paid it more than $4.2 million between 2013 and 2017 .... As ICE detentions rise and payouts to local jails increase, transparency is needed on another front, however: regarding detention conditions, such as the adequacy of medical services in local jails not set up for long-term detentions. Heisig and Goist write that “poor medical treatment contributed to more than half the deaths reported by ICE from December 2015 to April 2017, according to a Human Rights Watch report.” Those concerns are compounded by a report last June on detention conditions by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general that flagged poor federal oversight and frequent deficiencies in detention conditions in the local jails and other detention facilities ICE uses to house its detainees . ... Such weak federal oversight is precisely why Ohio localities that house ICE detainees must be transparent not just about how much they are paid by Washington but also about how they ensure appropriate medical care for detainees . ...