- Boone County Is Better called for greater transparency and accountability in the jail’s ICE detention practices.
- The request follows a federal court ruling ordering a bond hearing or release for a detainee held at the Boone County Jail.
- Similar concerns have been raised recently before the Kenton and Campbell county fiscal courts.
Members of the ‘Boone County is Better’ community group asked the county’s fiscal court to review the Boone County Jail’s cooperation with housing detainees arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
On Tuesday, four members of the group spoke during the fiscal court’s old business portion of the meeting, each offering comments and requests regarding immigration-related issues. Some members of the group wore yellow to identify themselves.
This comes on the heels of speakers at other county meetings, including the Kenton County Fiscal Court on Jan. 27 and 13 and the Campbell County Fiscal Court meeting on Jan. 21.
Boone County is Better describes itself as a bipartisan, community-based coalition focused on issues related to the Boone County Jail’s detention practices. On its Facebook page, the group states that it opposes profiting from the detention of uncharged individuals, emphasizes constitutional due process, fiscal responsibility, and transparency, and seeks to ensure that public safety and county finances are not built on practices that create legal risk or human harm.
Each of the three county detention centers in Northern Kentucky has an active agreement with ICE to house detainees. The Boone County Jail was the first to do so, entering into an agreement with ICE in 2005. On paper, the agreements are subcontracts with the U.S. Marshals.
During the Boone County Fiscal Court’s Jan. 13 meeting, Boone County is Better founder Brian Maurer submitted a formal memorandum to the court requesting monthly transparency reports on operations at the Boone County Jail. Yesterday, Maurer publicly revisited the request.
“Two weeks ago, I stood here and formally requested a monthly public accounting of five specific metrics for our detention center, including the zero charge consensus and medical response times,” Maurer said. “Tonight, I’m here to build on that request, because a recent ruling has cast a serious shadow over the county’s business.”
Maurer said the request was made in light of a recent court case ruling – Hernandez v. Maydak – a federal habeas corpus case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky by Ricardo Adolfo Lemus Hernandez, a non-citizen currently being held at the Boone County Jail. In the case, Hernandez challenged his immigration detention at the jail, arguing that he was held without due process because an immigration judge declined to grant him a bond hearing, thereby violating his 5th Amendment rights.
On Jan. 16, Chief Judge David Bunning granted Hernandez’s habeas petition, ordering his immediate release or a bond hearing within seven days of the order’s issuance. Furthermore, it requires a status report to be filed by Jan. 30 to confirm compliance.
As of now, Hernandez remains listed as being held at the jail on its website.
“This situation begs a deeply concerning question, how many more individuals are in there, in that facility whose constitutional rights are being ignored and or violated,” Maurer asked. “Right now, how many more human beings are languishing in our jail, uncharged and indefinitely detained simply because they are part of a profitable federal contract – we at Boone County is Better want to know.”
After the meeting, Maurer shared the memorandum with the public on Boone County is Better’s Facebook page.
The request outlines six transparency measures:
- Zero-Charge Census – the daily average number of people held with no pending local, state, or federal criminal charges.
- Average Length of Stay – how long uncharged and unconvicted individuals are held, on average, each month.
- Medical Adequacy Audit – average response time between a detainee’s written medical request and evaluation by a licensed provider.
- Language Access Audit – availability of detention rules, medical forms, and legal resources in non-English languages, as well as access to certified interpreters.
- Commingling Safety Audit – reports of safety incidents or use-of-force in housing units where uncharged civil detainees are housed with convicted offenders.
- Constitutional Liability Ledger – a five-year accounting of legal fees, settlements, and insurance cost increases related to lawsuits over detention of uncharged individuals.
Following Maurer, Soap Wolfe, a student at Erlanger’s Ignite Institute, shared her perspective as a young resident concerned over the impact of the jail’s contract with ICE. Wolfe said that she had been exposed to ICE’s enforcement tactics through social media. The death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minnesota, who was shot by ICE on Jan. 24, heightened her concerns.
“Public safety depends on trust, and trust cannot exist when people believe their county is benefiting from fear,” Wolfe said. “So my call to action tonight is this: please do not implement policies that burn that blur the line between local public safety and federal immigration enforcement. Do not rely on jail spaces as a source for profit, and please consider what kind of community this creates for the next generations of kids like me and for the kids I go to school with every single day.”
After two more speakers expressed similar sentiments, Boone County Judge/Executive Gary Moore said the court reviews any request submitted to the legislative body.
“We always consider any request that comes before us,” Moore said. “Sometimes we can’t respond right away. I do know that one of the points in this was there’s pending litigation, and we can’t really comment on pending litigation, obviously, but we’ll definitely consider everything we’ve heard tonight and we’ll take a look at the request and make those determinations.”