The Truth About Cascade County’s Relationship with ICE

This past week, I had the chance catch up with Cascade County Sheriff Slaughter as part of our weekly visits with the morning show on 560 KMON.

Sheriff Slaughter had plenty of useful information to share but there was a specific message he wanted to get across about a hot topic pertaining to ICE.

Sheriff Slaughter Explains How the Jail Keeps Money Coming In

Sheriff Slaughter opened up the conversation by reminding people about revenue-based jails before going into Cascade County Jail's relationship with ICE.

Sheriff Slaughter: "Some of our major challenges, you know, are as we, and we talked about we're a revenue-based jail facility. So, we have to take on people that pay us for beds, or we won't meet our budget. And that, what that literally means for people to understand is that literally means we won't have a jail.

So, there's no way to scale it. There's no way to downsize it because the cost, the expenses are outpacing the revenues right now. And I'm sure everybody's seeing this, like this isn't unique to the jail situation.

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I'm sure you're seeing it with your groceries and your gas and everything, right? You're making, you probably, everybody out there has probably seen in the last, like, you know, let's say, let's call it seven years and increase in their salaries, but it's not a big enough increase to manage what groceries and gas and, and, and how housing is out of control.

Well, the same thing's happening in the jail. And so, the only way we can do that is we have to take on contracts. And one of those contracts that we have is we are a federal detention facility."

Cascade County Jail's Relationship with ICE

As for the relationship between Cascade County Sheriff's Department and the federal government, Sheriff Slaughter explains the details many of us overlook.

Sheriff Slaughter: "We have a United States marshal contract, which also includes ICE. ICE is annotated on our contract. We don't have an ICE contract.

We explored it, but we, we didn't go there. So, we have a marshal contract, which includes ICE, CBP, they're kind of a add-on. But basically in, in short is obviously we house the ICE detainees in the state of Montana.

So, if our federal partners, you know, Immigration Customs, Border Patrol, any of those, when they're out there and they, they do ops and they, you know, arrest illegal detainees, they always come to our jail."

Chris: "Now, this is a model that you've mentioned before, Sheriff, that's been in place for a while, right? The revenue-based model for the jail?"

Sheriff Slaughter: "We're going on 30 years now."

Chris: "Wow. So then... these contracts that you guys have gotten with different federal agencies, is that always been something you'll have done since then in the last 30 years?"

Sheriff Slaughter: "Well, we had state for a while, but state, state rates are set by legislature. And it's a massive difference. Like right now, I think the state rate is $82. The federal rate is anywhere between $115 to 140 something or higher.

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So, if you look at the difference per inmate per day, there's far more, far more revenue that you can make off of federal inmates than you can off state inmates. You still make money off state inmates.

And as of today, we're, we were holding like 43 state inmates. So, you're still, you're still getting it, but it's not, you want to talk about expenses, outpacing revenues, state contract, you can't even keep up. And that's why in 2021, we pivoted."

Sheriff Slaughter Addresses Concerns About "Due Process of ICE Detainees"

Sheriff Slaughter also took a moment to address one of the most common calls he gets and that's about the due process of ICE detainees.

Sheriff Slaughter: "But one of the, one of the things that comes up a lot is I get calls from, I just got one yesterday, actually, I get calls from reporters and media, and they asked me all these questions about the due process of, of these, you know, ICE detainees. We have nothing to do with that.

That is all in the federal courts. That is an immigration judge. And most of them, immigration judges that are in our area, I think are in Tacoma, Washington, you know.

Now our, our United States district court judge will, will make determinations if they file a writ or something, and he'll determine, you know, what the due process is, but we have nothing to do with that. Yeah. And I get weird questions like, you know, an example of a question I'll get is, well, how are they, are they housed differently? I'm like, no, they're not there.

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They're housed as any pretrial detainee is. And that's because we have a federal contract that dictates how that's done. You know what I mean?

Chris: "So, do you think that those questions are, especially from the media, and I mean, I'm, I have guilty sometimes of hyping up things, but do you think they're asking you those questions, looking for the headline to say, oh, they're keeping them in cages or stuff like that?"

Sheriff Slaughter: "I think that's part of it. I think there's, there's, there's a big political division on this issue, right? In spite of the fact that this has been a law for, you know, forever, literally tens of probably a hundred years that this has been a law. And so it's, it's the law.

I mean, we have to follow the law, that the whole thing where you take your oath and you know, that whole gig, that whole thing, you know? So, it's, it's the law. It's just, it's become so politically divisive at this point, you know, and I really don't have the ability to get into a political conversation over this, you know, it's not, you know, it's not unconstitutional or, or anything like that, where I could technically. But I think it's important just for people to understand, like, we don't, number one in Cascade County, we don't have a choice without these, without these revenues, we wouldn't be able to protect our community.

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Um, you know, and our only choice to get out of the revenue-based model is to go for a levy and ask the taxpayers to make the difference. But we're not talking about a small number. No, we're talking, we're talking like $10 million.

And that's $10 million a year levied off your property taxes chase in a housing market that is already through the roof. You know what I mean?

And you know, you've heard me say this before, you know, when you have property taxes, you don't even really own your home anyway. You know, you're in servitude to the government through taxes and your property."

Chris: "Right. Despite being called a homeowner."

Sheriff Slaughter: "Yeah, exactly. You're like a permanent home renter."

Sheriff Slaughter's Reminder: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

But the, the thing I want to kind of get out in it and help people understand is like, there's all these mandates and all of these, um, and some of them, and, and, and not all of them are bad. Some of them are good. The problem is, is like a lot of things that come down from federal and state governments are mandated and they're mandated, you know, with good intentions.

They're mandated with good intentions, but the problem is, is they don't fund things behind them, you know? And I think that's one of the things that people really have to start wrapping their head around when they are like, I have this great idea, you know, and, and, and I agree fundamentally, I agree with like 90% of this stuff.

And the reason I do is because they're pretrial detainees. They are innocent until proven guilty. They're not guilty.

So, you have to be very responsible and thoughtful when you think about people who go to jail because not everybody in there is guilty."

What questions do YOU have for Sheriff Slaughter? We'll ask him if you send them to us HERE.