The State of Virginia, always at the forefront of the Immigration debate, is preparing to open one of the East Coast’s largest detention facilities in Farmville, VA. The facility will be used to imprison foreign nationals for immigration violations. Many of the inhabitants of the facility would have once been free with their families before they encountered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Detention facilities used by ICE are often far away from major metropolitan areas where the detainees live, and equally far from the foreign nationals’ families and attorneys. It is unfortunate that ICE regularly chooses detention as a means of “enforcement” at the cost of taxpayers when technologies such as GPS ankle bracelets are cheaper and a more humane way for ICE to enforce immigration laws.
Picture courtesy of the Washington Post
