By:Zach Wendling
Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — A Nebraska-run immigration detention facility in McCook will begin accepting the first federal migrant detainees at the state prison facility “in the next day or two,” Gov. Jim Pillen said Monday.
Pillen, speaking at an unrelated news conference, said the repurposing of Nebraska’s former Work Ethic Camp would include moving in the first federal migrant detainees this week.
Pillen had previously said he estimated the first detainees would come by Oct. 31 but had backed that up last week to early November. He and other state and federal officials have dubbed the revamped facility the “Cornhusker Clink.”
Nebraska has agreed to transition the former all-male state prison, which had offered rehabilitative programming and allowed inmates to work in the neighboring community, under an initial two-year contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The contract was signed Sept. 30.
The facility will remain state-owned and operated.
Under the contract, the Nebraska-ICE facility will eventually house up to 300 detainees. That would be more than the current maximum of about 200. Pillen said he expects the project — which he described as in two “phases” — to fill up to 200 detainees within “two to three weeks.”
Nebraska plans to find more room to support immigration court hearings at the facility and bedding for up to 300 adult male and female detainees, such as by repurposing previous programming space.
Pillen said the state is in the “midst” of getting the cost of that second phase approved, “and that’ll get started in the next couple of weeks.”
“Don’t have an exact timeline to that,” Pillen said Monday of the expansion. “My guess … it would be by the end of the year.”
Pillen’s office has estimated the contract would annually net Nebraska about $14.25 million. The Work Ethic Camp had an annual operating cost of $10.2 million. ICE has also agreed to also pay Nebraska a one-time lump sum of $5.9 million for “facility renovations.”
Reporter Erin Bamer contributed to this report.