Free Republic

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico legislators have introduced a bill that would prohibit local governments and state agencies from entering into contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and private detention facilities to detain immigrants in civil cases. The bill introduced Tuesday could unwind contractual arrangements at the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral in southern New Mexico and spur closer oversight at others.... ...The bill resembles recently enacted legislation in New Jersey, Virginia and Illinois aimed at ending detention in civil immigration cases in local facilities. California’s 2019 ban on privately owned immigration detention facilities was rejected...

...A grand jury in Brownsville, Texas, on Monday handed up sixteen counts against Pascale Ferrier, court records show. The 53-year-old resident of the Montreal area is in federal custody in Washington, D.C. on similar charges, prosecutors said Tuesday. ...In September, Ferrier pleaded not guilty to making threats against President Donald Trump by mailing a package containing ricin to the White House after she was arrested at the U.S.-Canada border. A federal judge in New York denied her release on bail. Ferrier is also alleged to have sent ricin to six detention centers and law enforcement agencies in the Rio Grande...

Houston-based KBR, formerly the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., has a contingency contract in place with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback confirmed yesterday in a telephone interview that the KBR contract for $385 million was awarded initially in January 2006 for a one-year base period with four one-year options. It has been extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005. Zuieback told this writer the primary intent of the KBR...