ICE ends contract with county: Yuba County Jail to no longer house federal immigration detainees

Dec. 10—After a long and at times controversial contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Yuba County Sheriff's Department officials said the federal agency will be terminating that contract within the next 60 days.

For more than three decades, Yuba County Jail has been housing detainees from the federal agency, commonly known as ICE, at the Marysville facility.

During that time, the county has been benefiting from the money collected as a part of that contract. County officials previously said that as part of the agreement, Yuba County Jail receives $158.13 per day for 150 detainees housed and an additional $13.79 per day for every detainee over 150.

According to previous reporting by the Appeal, the contract with ICE has generated as much as about $5 million in revenue annually since the 1990s. In a statement, the Yuba County Sheriff's Department and officials with the county said the termination of the contract will have an impact on the county's budget.

"The Sheriff's Office and County Administrator's Office are working together closely to process and address any impacts that could come as a result of this ICE-terminated contract," Yuba County Sheriff Wendell Anderson and County Administrator Kevin Mallen said in a joint statement to the Appeal.

While no firm reason for the termination of the contract was available as of press time Friday, Anderson hinted in a statement that it possibly had to do with the amount of detainees the jail had and the money being spent on the contract by ICE.

"The decision to end our contract came from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement," Yuba County Sheriff Wendell Anderson said in a statement. "I stand by our jail, the staff, and the conditions, as we have always passed every inspection. Before COVID restrictions, our jail averaged close to 175 detainees. That number has gradually decreased and it's understandable that it no longer fiscally makes sense for ICE to continue the contract."

Katy Goodson, public information officer for the Yuba County Sheriff's Department, said the jail is currently housing four detainees. Those detainees will be "transferred to another facility," Goodson said. The Yuba County Jail was the last county facility in the state with an ICE contract, Goodson said.

The jail and its relationship with ICE has been wrought with controversy over the years.

In 2020, undocumented immigrants detained at the Yuba County Jail conducted a hunger strike in response to what they said were deplorable conditions at the jail in Marysville. Their stated reasons for the hunger strike ranged from arbitrary restrictions on yard time by the jail division commander to the mixing of populations of immigrant detainees with recently detained criminals, which the ICE detainees at the time said ignored COVID-19 distancing restrictions and common-sense practices that were supposed to be put in place.

Itzel Calvo, who was a deportation defense organizer with the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance at the time, said those who participated in the hunger strike notified his team that hygienic products and beverages were taken from them in retaliation to the hunger strike, the Appeal previously reported.

"This is a violation to the 4.2 Hunger Strike National Detention Standards, in which 'staff are required to provide an adequate amount of water or other liquids,'" Calvo said in a statement in August 2020. "Folks have been organizing inside detention centers across California for five months now, and no significant change is being enacted by state or locally elected leaders. The folks inside felt escalation was needed, even though the air quality poses extra health risks."

Ron Johnson, who was the Yuba County Undersheriff at the time of the hunger strike, said no personal hygiene items were taken from the inmates, though some of the participating detainees did have some powdered beverages that they purchased from the jail commissary (tea, protein powder, coffee, etc.) taken, which were expected to be returned when the hunger strike was over, the Appeal previously reported. Those inmates still had access to water at all times, he said.

"We continue to offer them meals at meal time, and medical staff offers them electrolytes, but the whole idea is to get them to eat balanced meals," Johnson said.

Johnson also said the jail did suspend the use of the outdoor exercise yards at one point for all inmates due to poor air quality, though the suspension had nothing to do with the refusal of meals. In terms of mixing of the different jail populations, Johnson said there were times when ICE detainees were in the same housing area as county inmates, the Appeal previously reported.

In October 2021, 24 members of Congress signed a letter sent to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security calling on the agency to close two private detention facilities as well as terminate its agreement with Yuba County Jail.

The letter to the federal department cited Yuba County Jail's consistently unsanitary conditions and low population. It mentioned that Yuba County Jail has been subject to a federal consent decree since 1979. The decree was amended in 2018 and requires the county improve conditions at the jail including providing timely medical care, changing the physical structure of the jail, and providing mental health care and suicide risk assessments for certain detainees.

An April 2021 inspection from the ICE Office of Detention Oversight found 31 deficiencies and found that Yuba County Jail was in compliance with only half of the 18 ICE detention standards, according to the letter.

Leslie Williams, a Yuba County Sheriff's Department spokesperson at the time, said the jail had two successful ICE inspections of the facility and programs in recent months and the sheriff's office praised jail division staff in an Oct. 22 Facebook post. Williams said the jail was in compliance of the consent decree and that all structural changes that were required were completed, with a final structural change that was under construction.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also has previously warned the county and the Yuba County Sheriff's Department of "potential liability" in regards to conditions at the Yuba County Jail.

In a letter that was dated Dec. 10, 2021, the ACLU made several allegations against the jail and what it said were rights violations of those held in civil custody. Like others had previously, the nonprofit organization accused the jail of violations that have occurred while housing individuals detained by ICE.

The ACLU claimed that the Yuba County Sheriff's Department and Yuba County Jail had "consistently subjected individuals in ICE custody to dangerous and unlawful treatment, including a lack of acceptable medical care, spoiled food, unhygienic conditions, and unnecessary use of administrative segregation."

Anderson previously said many of the allegations brought forth by the ACLU and others were not valid.

"The Yuba County Jail is in compliance with detention standards and undergoes numerous inspections annually," Anderson previously said. "... In the most recent ODO (Office of Detention Oversight) inspection, the jail was found deficient in one area. That one deficiency was regarding verbiage in our Yuba County Inmate Property Policy and has since been corrected."

Anderson said the following inspections were done during 2021: two Prison Rape Elimination Act inspections; two ODO inspections; a Nakamoto inspection; a California Board of State and Community Corrections inspection; a Grand Jury inspection; a Health Department inspection; a fire inspection; and one Department of Justice inspection.

He pointed to these inspections as proof that the allegations in the ACLU's letter were either overblown or just not true.