Kentucky’s League of Women Voters has issued a new report on “Kentucky Jails Working with ICE” available now at lwvky.org/immigration.
It provides evidence for five main points from the League’s analysis so far:
• Twelve Kentucky jails are being paid to house people in ICE custody, and most of those people have no criminal convictions.
• More than sixty Kentucky jails have voluntarily placed ICE holds on people arrested locally.
• Two Kentucky jails have ICE 287(g) partnerships, as do more than fifty local law enforcement agencies.
• Kentucky jails’ inmate lists vary widely. Some are clear about individuals’ ICE status. Others are less clear, and several are deliberately hiding names of people they have locked up for ICE.
• Most Kentucky jails that provide ICE custody are overcrowded because of their federal roles.
The League also released letters to leaders in the counties with the greatest participation: Boone, Bourbon, Campbell, Christian, Daviess, Fayette, Grayson, Hopkins, Jefferson, Kenton, Laurel, Oldham, and Woodford.
Each letter asks those with jail governance roles to:
• Provide fully transparent inmate lists.
• Provide evidence on human rights and human dignity.
As part of our Unite & Rise effort to defend our democracy, the League invites support of their advocacy effort, asking:
• Take a look at the report and at least one letter at lwvky.org/immigration.
• Share this message with friends across the state.
• Communicate with officials in your own county and maybe some of the others listed in the report, urging due process and decency for everyone whose liberty has been taken as part of current immigration enforcement efforts.
Kentucky jails belong to the public, the people of Kentucky, who should know how immigrants are being treated. The people held there are human beings, says the League, so Kentuckians should insist on their human rights. And again, the jails are the public’s jails, and the public should seek clear information on what is happening in those facilities.
The League of Women Voters