Nearly two hundred undocumented immigrants facing deportation for violating federal immigration laws were detained at West County Detention Center in Richmond, awaiting hearings to decide their fates. As of late last week, ICE had transferred all of those detainees to other sites, many of them out of state.
"Well, when Sheriff Livingston decided to end the ICE contract, it effectively started this countdown. Contracts with ICE can only be cancelled with 120 days notice, that would mean all detainees out by November. So then there was this big scramble to get every detainee legal representation. The thought process being that if everyone had a lawyer, it was less likely that people would be transferred. But that’s not what happened."
