BUNKER HILL, Ind. (WISH) — The first group of detainees held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have arrived at the Miami Correctional Facility.
An IDOC spokesperson confirmed the arrival to News 8 Thursday morning.
The Miami County facility will have up to 1,000 beds available for detainees. The first group of 15 arrived at the facility Wednesday; IDOC officials say they expect to receive anywhere between “10 and 25” detainees on Thursday.
Fewer than 100 more are expected to arrive through the end of the week.
Federal leaders announced the partnership between ICE and Miami Correctional in early August. This summer, the Department of Defense, now known by the Trump administration as the Department of War, also earmarked Camp Atterbury as a potential site for a temporary detention facility but there have not yet been any moves toward setting up such a facility.
The partnership has been the subject of public scrutiny, the most recent protest organized by central Indiana clergy members on Monday.
Tracy Smith Malone, bishop of the Indiana Episcopal Area of the United Methodist Church, told News 8’s Garrett Bergquist that the decision to house detainees is “an act of inhumanity and injustice.”
“To detain immigrants to such a place is not justice. It is a violation of human dignity,” she said. “We are talking about men and women and children, God’s beloved, refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants who are our neighbors and our friends and our siblings in a human family, who have fled violence, who have come fleeing poverty.”
The Marion County jail and Sheriff Forestal have also faced backlash for temporarily housing detainees, some members of the Indianapolis City-County Council in a Sept. 3 meeting going as far as saying they would vote on Forestal’s annual budget unless the jail stopped housing detainees.
According to the ICE detention facility database, Indiana only has two official ICE detention centers listed: The Clark County jail and the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office. It’s unclear if the database will be updated to include the correctional facility.
