DODGE COUNTY, Wis. (WTAQ) - The Dodge County jail is one of the top locations in the Midwest for holding illegal immigrants awaiting deportation.
Since 2003, the facility has housed an average of 1,000 immigrant detainees a year, with most eventually deported to Mexico. Sheriff Todd Nehls says that's helped the county pay for a new jail it built in 2001. He says Dodge County’s partnership with the federal government has created 50 jobs and generated $45 million in federal revenue.
Nehls says Dodge county ranks 14th among the 1,500 facilities where deportees are held because it is providing good medical service, translation assistance and access to attorneys for immigrants fighting deportation.
But immigrant rights activists say the county is raking in federal dollars and ignoring the damage being done to families when a mother or a father is deported.
Jill Vonnahme of Voces de la Frontera says her biggest concern is that although Homeland Security officials say most of the immigrants being deported are guilty of serious crimes, her group has found that's not the case. She says of the 150 cases they’ve seen in the past year, there have been only 5 or 10 dangerous criminals.
