For 1 Maryland County, No Business Like Jail Business

Warden John W. Welch says he has learned some things about foreigners.

One: They’re not hard to intimidate. Throw a troublemaker in a jail cell with 30 American thugs. That, Welch says, adjusts his attitude.

Two: There’s money to be wrung from the plight of immigrants who run afoul of the system. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service pays $50 a day for a bed in Welch’s jail, a bed that costs just $17.89 to provide. That’s $32.11 clear profit. Last year, the Wicomico County Detention Center made $2.7 million, two-thirds of it gravy.

Just south of the Delaware line on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Wicomico County is cashing in on a soaring number of immigrants housed behind bars.

Tough immigration laws passed by Congress in 1996 require that foreigners facing possible deportation be jailed while awaiting determination of their fates. The imprisoned include immigrants who have criminal records or expired visas, as well as new arrivals who have requested political asylum because of violence at home.

The average number of INS detainees has tripled, to 21,000 each day, making them the fastest-growing sector of the nation’s booming prison population. Desperate for jail space, the INS uses more than a third of its $800-million detention budget to rent cells in about 225 jails--most of them in rural counties where costs are low and there are beds to spare.

As a result, jails that once consumed big chunks of local budgets are becoming profit centers for small-town America. In Farmville, Va., the growing profits have made the Piedmont Regional Jail self-supporting. In York County, Pa., a jail wing built exclusively for the INS funded a property tax cut.

In Wicomico County, Warden Welch has proposed building a prison for the INS that would generate an estimated $4 million a year at a time when county voters have rejected new taxes.

Advocates say the arrangement puts people who overstay a student visa, write a bad check or show up at Dulles International Airport with a sad story of persecution in jail with local criminals accused of rape, robbery and murder.

And they contend that the remote jails are too far from the lawyers that immigrants need to navigate complicated deportation proceedings. Salisbury, in Wicomico County, for example, is 116 miles from Washington and 110 miles from Baltimore.

Wicomico County spends less on its inmates than any other jail in Maryland. In July, more than 80 INS detainees signed a letter complaining that they “sleep on the floor with cockroaches,” eat “bologna two and sometimes three times a day” and receive a single set of clothes, forcing them “to walk naked when they [are] washed.”

There also are allegations that jailers use excessive force and abusive restraining devices and provide insufficient medical care. Last month, the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department began an investigation into reports of abuse and neglect in Wicomico County.

Welch says the investigators will find nothing: No one sleeps on the floor in his jail, he says. Food, clothing and medical care all meet guidelines set by the Maryland Commission on Correctional Standards, of which Welch is vice chairman.

“I run a constitutional jail,” Welch said.

INS officials say they have no reason to doubt Welch, nor to question his flinty style.

“It’s his facility,” said Chris Bentley, spokesman for the INS’ Baltimore district. “What he says goes.”

Welch is a gruff and blustery former military man fast approaching retirement age.

He takes great pride in his jail. It is modern. It is efficient. Its operating costs are the lowest in the state. It was the first jail in Maryland to win an INS contract and, as Welch will tell you, that contract has repeatedly bailed out Wicomico County.

“Five years ago, the county needed to raise $65,000 in 30 days,” Welch said, puffing on a cigarette in a jailhouse office stacked high with inmate files. “I picked up the phone and called the INS and said, ‘Send me 70 inmates.’ And it was done.”

Some INS detainees do have special needs, Welch admits. But Wicomico County accommodates them all, he said.