In at least four Ohio jails and two regional correctional facilities, county officials are holding hundreds of people for indefinite stretches on behalf of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency as they await deportation.
In southwest Ohio, 142 alleged immigration offenders currently fill the cells of the Butler County Sheriff’s jail, according to ICE data. That count has included a 19-year-old soccer star from the Cincinnati area with no criminal history who was deported to Honduras after he was arrested in front of his mother. And it currently includes a children’s hospital chaplain who is facing deportation to Egypt, a country he fled after he was tortured by the government there after the Arab Spring. Both were apprehended after required visits with immigration officials.
A sign sits outside the Butler County jail, reading “ILLEGAL ALIENS HERE.”…