Midwest state, like Florida, has partnered with Ice and will add more beds at its Miami correctional facility<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is expanding its detention capacity by 1,000 beds in Indiana through a partnership with the midwest state\u2019s prison system, federal officials announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ice will be housing detainees at the Miami correctional center, a prison run by the Indiana department of corrections. The move is part of the US government\u2019s rapid expansion of immigration jails after Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping spending bill allotted roughly $170bn to Ice<\/a>, an extraordinary sum making the agency the most heavily funded law enforcement department within the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kristi Noem, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, said the Indiana facility would be called the \u201cSpeedway Slammer\u201d, following last month\u2019s opening of the so-called \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d immigration jail in Florida<\/a>, in collaboration with Ron DeSantis, the state\u2019s Republican governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Noem claimed Tuesday that the Indiana prison would house \u201csome of the worst of the worst\u201d of undocumented people, echoing DHS\u2019 repeated claims about the targets of its enforcement. But records from the jail in the remote Florida Everglades, which critics have called a concentration camp<\/a>, cast doubts on those assertions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reporting from the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times last month found<\/a> more than 250 people detained at the jail who have no criminal convictions or pending charges in the US, despite state and federal officials saying the jail was for \u201cvicious\u201d and \u201cderanged psychopaths\u201d facing deportation. Those newspapers also recently reported<\/a> that a 15-year-old boy with no criminal record was sent to the jail, which is not supposed to house youths \u2013 a mistake the jail claimed was due to the boy \u201cmisrepresenting\u201d his age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Florida advocates have alleged that the conditions at the Everglades jail were appalling<\/a>, with detainees forced to sleep in overcrowded pods where sewage backups led to cages flooded with feces. While officials have denied claims of inhumane treatment, the Trump administration has also promoted the brutality of the facility, including with the widely criticized decision<\/a> to name the jail \u201cAlligator Alcatraz, a reference to the remote location in a wetland surrounded by crocodiles, alligators, pythons and mosquitoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DHS appears to be using a similar tactic with the \u201cSpeedway Slammer\u201d name in Indiana, which Noem promoted<\/a> with a social media post, saying, \u201cIf you are in America illegally, you could find yourself in Indiana\u2019s Speedway Slammer. Avoid arrest and self deport now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n DHS did not immediately respond to questions about the timeline of the Indiana expansion and how the facility would be run. The Miami correctional facility is a maximum-security prison at a former air force base, roughly 70 miles north of Indianapolis, and has capacity for around 3,100 people, according to the IndyStar newspaper<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Florida jail is run by that state\u2019s division of emergency management, an arrangement that has raised alarm among advocates, as journalists found<\/a> many detainees were housed in the facility even though they were not listed in Ice\u2019s database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mike Braun, Indiana\u2019s governor, said in a statement the state was \u201ctaking a comprehensive and collaborative approach to combating illegal immigration\u201d and was \u201cproud to work with President Trump and Secretary Noem as they remove the worst of the worst\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Indiana has previously raised alarms<\/a> about Miami correctional center conditions. In cases filed in 2021, the ACLU said some incarcerated people in segregated housing were forced to live in prolonged darkness<\/a>, in cells with live electrical wires<\/a> hanging from fixtures that in some cases shocked the residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t tolerate animals being held in such horrifying conditions, how can we tolerate them for people?\u201d the ACLU said<\/a> in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Corrections officials declined to comment at the time. Annie Goeller, a spokesperson for the Indiana department of correction (IDOC), did not respond to questions about conditions on Tuesday, but said in an email her department was working with the governor to \u201cpartner with federal authorities to enforce immigration laws\u201d, adding: \u201cDetails about the partnership and how IDOC can best support those efforts are being determined.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Indiana move comes as the Trump administration has increasingly sent immigration detainees to federal prisons that house criminal defendants. Those partnerships have reportedly caused chaos behind bars, with immigrants and their lawyers reporting horrific conditions and overcrowding<\/a>, exacerbating problems for the longterm residents serving sentences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that the DeSantis administration in Florida is planning to build a second immigration detention center<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Noem has said the Everglades jail in Florida would be a model for state-run immigration detention centers<\/a>. And DHS has said that Trump\u2019s bill will provide funding for 80,000 new beds for Ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n