Despite Gov. Spencer Cox’s wishes, Utah does not have an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. Detainees arrested in Utah are often taken to ICE facilities near Denver and Las Vegas. But some local jails have long partnered with the federal government to house on a short-term basis detainees arrested by ICE.
The jails in Salt Lake, Tooele and Washington counties have agreements with the U.S. Marshals Service that allow ICE to bring detainees into their facilities.
This is separate from 287(g) agreements, in which local law enforcement agencies collaborate with ICE to carry out limited immigration enforcement.
In Utah’s most populous county, the Salt Lake County Metro Jail can hold up to 10 ICE detainees. That number includes two groups of people: detainees arrested and brought to the jail by ICE, along with people who were arrested on state or local charges and are being held for up to 72 hours beyond their scheduled release at ICE’s request.
ICE detainees are housed in the same conditions as other people in the jail, said Matt Dumont, chief deputy over corrections.
This arrangement is not new. ICE began housing detainees at the Salt Lake County jail in 1993, according to a 2023 jail inspection report by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, with oversight from ICE’s Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations field office director in Salt Lake City.
The federal government reimburses the jails for housing federal detainees.
In Salt Lake County, the rate is currently $73.10 per bed per day.
That reimbursement benefits the jail, Dumont said. He believes the agreement also benefits detainees because it offers a break during a long drive between the location of their arrest and the detention center where they’re headed.
Holding some ICE detainees does not increase the burden on staff, Dumont said.
“It’s a number that we can manage within our current operations.”
The Tooele County Detention Center, on the other hand, does not have a set number of ICE beds under their agreement with the federal government, said Sheriff Paul Wimmer. Rather, the jail considers each case individually.
“It just kind of depends on the circumstances,” Wimmer said. “If we have bed space and we're assured they can get them out within the 72 hours, we'll take them, typically.”
The federal government reimburses Tooele County $85 per bed per day for holding federal detainees.
“We're basically kind of a stopgap because there are no federal holding facilities in the state of Utah,” Wimmer said.
In Washington County, the reimbursement rate is $82. ICE detainees have remained at the Purgatory Correctional Facility longer than in the other two jails this fiscal year, for an average of six days, compared to two days in Tooele and Salt Lake counties, according to federal detention data.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office declined KUER’s request for an interview and did not answer questions about the number of beds used for ICE detainees or how the agreement benefits the county.
An ICE spokesperson did not answer KUER’s questions about why a detainee may be taken to a jail instead of going straight to an ICE detention center.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
