Hudson County jail will get 300 immigrant detainees from Manhattan facility being shut down

Monday, January 18, 2010
By MELISSA HAYES

JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

KEARNY - Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have announced they are shutting a New York facility and transferring 300 detainees to the Hudson County jail in Kearny over the next month.

But U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, has other ideas.

Schumer has sent off a letter to Janet Napolitano, secretary of homeland security, arguing the transfer violates due process rights of the detainees since it would take more than two hours for family members traveling by public transportation to visit their loved ones.

County spokesman James Kennelly emphasized last week that the number of detainees in the Hudson County jail would not actually increase.

To make room for the 300 new detainees, 300 current detainees would be shifted to other facilities in New Jersey, he said. The New York detainees have been housed in a federal prison on Varick Street in Greenwich Village.

The move will save ICE money. It costs $111 per day to house detainees in Hudson County Jail, compared to $253 per day at Varick Street.

Immigration rights groups have protested the New York facility, arguing that it doesn't provide the mandatory outdoor recreation.

Kennelly said the Hudson County Jail was likely chosen for its good record with detainees and its close proximity to Manhattan, where the New York detainees cases will be heard in court.

Since the county jail began housing immigrant detainees about eight years ago, about 30,000 have come through its doors, Kennelly said.