Could we be looking at a private immigration prison in Uinta County?

Could we be looking at an ICE Detention Center in Uinta County? The answer is yes, unless we organize to stop it.

On October 12, 2017, the Department of Homeland Security issued a Request for Information o regarding four potential locations for new immigration detention centers. The four locations specified include Detroit, St. Paul, Chicago, and Salt Lake City. The RFI stated the facilities could be within a 180-mile ‘ground commute’ of the named city; for Salt Lake City, that radius Uinta County and the City of Evanston.

The facility, if approved, would host up to 600 people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Private, for-profit entities are a key part of ICE immigrant detention, and the RFI was open to participation by private entities.

Earlier, in June 2017, the Uinta County Commission and Evanston City Council both unanimously passed resolutions supporting a proposal by Management and Training Corporation to build a private immigration detention center in the county. MTC is a private, for-profit, Centerville, Utah-based prison and detention center company with a horrific reputation for cost cutting, abuse, poorly-run facilities, and secrecy. Whether or not MTC knew of the Department of Homeland Security’s plan for an RFI is unknown, though the timing of the company’s outreach to the county and city is suspicious at best.

What we do know is they want to build a private, for-profit immigration prison in our state, which would rip our families apart, harm our rural communities, and once again put Wyoming on the map for the imprisonment of targeted communities of color.

We’ve been here before – let’s not go there again.