The southern Maine sheriff who went from loving federal-ICE inmates to blasting the federal agency that helped pay his bills will cost county taxpayers big time.
Literally if not also politically.
After Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce accused federal immigration authorities of “bush-league” tactics, they decided to pull all of their detained arrestees out of Joyce’s jail.
Or, more accurately, the county’s taxpayer-financed jail.
To wit, the loss of 50 ICE detainees will cost the 315,000 taxpayers in Maine’s most-populous county $2.7 million a year.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was paying the county $150 a day to house its prisoners.
Joyce was for ICE before he was against it, to employ a famous phrase once used by failed presidential hopeful Democrat U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, describing his flip-flop on a federal policy.
In the face of widespread political opposition in Maine’s most liberal county, Joyce for the longest time had stuck to his guns supporting ICE arresting illegal immigrants.
But once the agency cuffed one of his own jail employees for alleged violations of immigration laws, Joyce suddenly went rogue, accusing ICE of so-called “bush-league” tactics.
That’s when his county checkbook suddenly went red in the face – to the point of $2.7 million.
“Soon after Joyce’s comments, federal officials began removing ICE detainees from the Cumberland County facility, ending, at least for now, a major federal detention partnership and the revenue stream that comes with it,” Jon Fetherston of The Maine Wire reported February 7.
“The detainee pullout is not just symbolic,” Fetherston noted. “Cumberland County, like many jurisdictions, has relied on federal detention contracts to help offset jail costs.”
Joyce’s immediate bosses, the Cumberland County commissioners, may now wish their high sheriff had stayed with the party line.
After all, it’s the commissioners who must ultimately explain and defend what most assuredly now will be a painful $2.7 million tax increase.
