I read how Sen. Orrin Hatch wants the Department of Homeland Security to return immigration detainees to the Weber County Jail.
The jail lost the contract to house the undocumented Americans, you may have heard, after an audit found shortcomings in the way the jail treated the detainees.
But, here's the kicker: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid out $1.5 million a year to Weber County on the contract. It was $55 a bed per night, with 30-60 detainees on any given day.
That's $1.5 million, at a single county jail.
One wonders how much money we are spending nationwide detaining and jailing people simply because their paperwork wasn't in order -- and this in a day we need federal thrift.
Perhaps many of those in the ICE houses -- if I may call the jails that -- have also committed other crimes, more serious. Would be interesting to know. If so, maybe the cost is justified.
If not -- if these are by far and away just simple everyday people caught living where they aren't wanted, then we are wasting a lot of money jailing common folk.
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