Ozark County Jail signs contract to house federal ICE detainees

After three years of planning, the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department is set to undergo significant changes this week as it begins a contract with the federal government to house Department of Homeland Security detainees at the Ozark County Jail. 

Sheriff Cass Martin said the sheriff’s department finalized and signed a five-year contract last week that designates 20 of the Ozark County Jail’s 24 prisoner beds for federal detainees of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division. In exchange for housing the prisoners and providing transportation to federal court appearances or to the Kansas City airport for deportation, the OCSD will receive a stipend per prisoner, per day, and a price per mile for all transportation conducted for the detainees.

While the financial specifics of the agreement remain confidential by contract, Sheriff Cass Martin assures the Times that the agreement will “significantly benefit Ozark County.”

The jail is now looking to add 16 to 18 additional workers, mostly jailers and transport guards, to implement the new program. The pay starts at $18.50 per hour, a huge step up from the jailer’s former pay of just $12 or $13 an hour. Those hired will be Ozark County Sheriff’s Department employees and therefore will qualify for county benefits including paid time off, health insurance and 401k. Employees are needed for all shifts. Those interested in the jobs should be 18, have a high school diploma or GED and have no felony convictions on their criminal record. To receive an application, send an email to apply@ozarkcounty.gov. 

The influx of new jail staff essentially doubles the size of the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department employees. “It’s bringing a lot of local jobs here to Ozark County,” Martin said.  

The sheriff emphasizes that the detainees will almost exclusively be non-violent individuals who are just in custody while they work through various visa and immigration status issues. In general, they will not be high-level, violent offenders, he says. 

He also reiterates that the jail will only serve as a temporary housing facility for the ICE detainees for likely one to two weeks while the cases move through the ICE process. 

Furthermore, he says it’s important to understand that absolutely none of the detainees will be released in or near Ozark County. Instead they will either be transported to another federal holding facility or to the airport in Kansas City to board an airplane.

Finding a way out of crisis

Although the bold new proposal is news to most folks this week, the sheriff and his staff have been tireless working to make it a reality since 2022, when a budget crisis at the sheriff’s office led to the immediate layoff of seven employees. 

Martin said that after the layoffs, he and OCSD Administrator Curtis Ledbetter sat down and began brainstorming ways that the sheriff’s department could bring in money that would serve as a long-term solution for future years.  

“We were trying to come up with some type of scenario that would benefit the sheriff’s office in the long run, even after we’re gone... something the sheriff’s office can lean on so that it will never have to go through what it did in 2022,” the sheriff told the Times. 

Martin, who had previously worked as a federal contractor providing security at federal buildings in Springfield, including the ICE office, said that he was aware that DHS sometimes contracted with county-owned jail facilities to house federal inmates. He thought that might be a possibility for Ozark County. 

“I got in contact with some of the people I worked with years ago, and they said this was something that we could do. So, we slowly kind of put things together...” Martin said. 

At the time the process began, President Joe Biden was in office, and the federal government was cutting contracts with county jails for housing federal ICE prisoners, he said. Also around that same time, the state of Illinois passed a law that prevented county jails from housing federal prisoners - cutting the number of available beds for the ICE inmates by 30,000 and 40,000, which opened a greater opportunity to nearby states like Missouri, if funding was to ever resume.

Updating the jail with the contract in mind

Although the political climate had affected the ICE contracts, Martin and Ledbetter believed the effort was still one that could eventually benefit Ozark County, so they persevered. The Ozark County Commissioners were also looped in on conversations between ICE and the sheriff’s department and the potential for a jail contract here as early as 2022-23. “They’ve been 100 percent behind this from the beginning, which has been really nice,” Ledbetter said. 

A large part of the decision to extend a contract to a specific jail focuses on the condition of the building and if it meets federal guidelines required by the government to house the detainees. Thanks to ARPA funds received after covid, the county was able to designate several hundred thousand dollars to make facility improvements at the jail. 

“So, over the last two years while we were working on [negotiations for the contract], we were also slowly building up our jail and our facility and trying to follow the guidelines to be able to do this in the future,” Martin said. “We have a new roof. We have the fire suppression unit in the jail. We have the body scanner. Everything has kind of led up to this, to be able to hold [prisoners] for the federal government.”

Martin said there have been several meetings between the OCSD and ICE over the last three years, both here in Gainesville and at the ICE office in Republic.

“We went up there a few times and talked to them. Then we invited them down, and they came and looked at our facility,” Martin said. “The big question was if this was going to work here, in Ozark County, where we are. We’ve heard that several sheriffs in the past have tried to do this, and they’ve been told we’re too far out, not close enough to Springfield - that geographically, we just aren’t where we needed to be to make this happen. But we called some of the guys that work for ICE, they took a road trip down here, looked at our facility, and they said ‘absolutely, you guys would be beneficial to what we need.’”

‘Everything kind of hinged on Trump’

The planning took a major turn toward reality when it was announced that Donald Trump had won the race for president in the Nov. 6, 2024, General Election. Trump had promised to carry out a very strong immigration enforcement strategy during his term as president, and therefore ICE anticipated the funding for the contracts would likely significantly increase under his leadership. 

On the night of the election, when it was announced that Trump was anticipated to be the winning candidate, Martin and Ledbetter realized that the contract they’d worked so hard for would have a real probability of being accepted in 2025.

“Curtis and I were actually on our way back from Springfield, and we got a call at 6:30, 7 o’clock at night from the main guy from the Chicago field office, wanting to talk numbers with us… asking us to resubmit the numbers that we’d previously sent,” the sheriff said. 

“We had to pull off on the side of the road so we didn’t lose the call,” Ledbetter said, laughing. 

“Then, everything kind of hinged on Trump. We knew that they would have to wait until he was inaugurated. So, that meant that we’d have to wait until after the 21st of January... And on the 22nd, they were here to do the inspection.”

An intense jail inspection

Martin and Ledbetter said that the federal inspection was held over the course of two very long, detailed days in which four different inspectors picked apart every aspect of the jail facility and everyone who worked in it.

“They were looking at everything, absolutely everything. All of our policies, our jail itself, our procedures, our kitchen, the way the jail was laid out... they wanted to look at our security program, watch our jailers do their jobs, job shadowing them for part of the time. They asked about our healthcare and how we perform it, how our cleaning supplies are stored... every single function of the building except for dispatch and the deputies side of things was analyzed.”

The contracted inspectors were very straight-faced throughout the process and made very minimal social conversation, putting everyone on edge a bit. “We were just getting stone-faced. And we were thinking, ‘I just don’t know about this. I can’t get a feel for what they think...’ Then, on day two, they called us in, and it was like getting called into the office,” Martin said. 

The inspectors conducted a multi-party call on the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department’s phone, looping in the ICE offices in Springfield and Chicago. 

“They went over some of their findings. They said we have a very clean and sanitary jail. Everything seemed to be right where it was supposed to be at. They did say the policies needed a huge update, but everything else seemed good. They said Ozark County seems like it’d be a prime fit,” Martin said. 

The OCSD procedures were in compliance with the 2019 National Detention Standards that ICE requires, Ledbetter said, but the sheriff’s office didn’t have all the procedures down as written policies, which is required for this type of contract. The OCSD took the findings from the inspectors and recrafted all of the jail policies to comply. “It was a massive undertaking,” Ledbetter said. 

In Missouri, there is only a vague statute that governs the maintenance of county jails, and there are no statewide minimum standards. So, the sheriff over a jail has a lot of leeway in how they run the facility; however, when housing federal prisoners, there are very strict rules required. 

The OCSD finalized the policies and signed the contract with ICE last week. The sheriff said that Ozark County is now only the second county in the state to have adopted the National Detention Standards, behind Morgan County. There are other counties, like Greene, St. Genevieve and Phelps Counties, that have met requirements to house ICE prisoners for up to 72 hours, which is a much lower bar. But at this point, only Morgan and Ozark Counties have adopted the NDS standards that allow them to house the prisoners past the 72 hour mark. 

A new jail commander to lead the new program

The Ozark County Jail and the new ICE contract is being supervised by Todd Beaver, a local resident who was hired by the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department to serve as the Jail Commander and Investigator. He has spent a few months working as a OCSD reserve deputy to get a feel for the organization before he stepped into the supervising jail role a week or so ago.

“My background is as a former investigator out of Arkansas, so I have years of law enforcement experience,” Beaver told the Times. “I knew Cass even before he ran for sheriff. Bringing him on as sheriff was a blessing for Ozark County, any way you look at it.”

Beaver said the sheriff called him recently to ask if he’d be interested in the new position.

“I didn’t bat an eye. It’s a privilege for me, and I think this will take Ozark County to not only a higher standard, but this will bring us to the forefront of any department in the area,” Beaver said. 

The OCSD conducted its first assignment as part of the ICE contract over the weekend. A transport guard drove to St. Louis, picked up an ICE detainee and drove them to another facility in Springfield, before returning home. 

The 20 beds designated for ICE could also be used by other federal agencies occasionally, the sheriff said. 

“If the Department of Justice... say, the U.S. Marshals or FBI, have somebody that needs to be housed, we will house for them as well,” the sheriff said. 

Most ICE detainees are expected to be in the Ozark County Jail for one to two weeks. There is the possibility of a stay of up to a month, but it is not likely. 

“Ozark County’s providing a sanitary holding area for ICE... These are not violent offenders. I wouldn’t even call them offenders. These are people who are just figuring out their visa and their immigration status,” the sheriff said. “These are not people who have committed murder. We’ve got our own prisoners back in the jail right now for sexual offenses, for murder, for stealing, for drug offenses… Now, some of those, I wouldn’t turn my back on.”

The detainees will be from “all walks of life” and from as many as 70 different countries. Communication will occur through various technologies, including translation devices. One such device Martin has that he anticipates will be helpful is a small ear piece that picks up a person’s language as they speak it and translates it into English in real-time. It will be helpful, he says, because the ICE detainees will speak all different languages. 

“They’re going to be Chinese, Russian, Slavic, Middle Eastern... a lot of people think that this will mostly be Spanish-speaking people, but they’ve told us that Spanish speakers will actually amount to less than 30 percent,” Ledbetter said. 

Although the contract is offered in 5-year increments, the OCSD expects that once it is offered, it likely will continue to be offered. It’s also worth noting that the sheriff’s department has entered into prisoner contracts before, including one with Greene County in 2019, but they’ve always been for a limited amount of time until the original county could get a jail built. The ICE contract is a continuous one, and there is no facility being built that will eventually house the detainees involved. 

Ozark County prisoners housed in Ava

Martin says that he’s reached an agreement with Douglas County Sheriff Chris DeGase to house Ozark County’s prisoners at the jail in Ava. The OCSD will pay Douglas County  a fee to house the prisoners. 

Having four beds for its own use will make operations flow better at the Ozark County Jail, as local defendants can be brought here the night before their hearings, so that transportation won’t have to occur the morning of court. The beds will also be used by deputies who arrest suspects. Those suspects can stay in the Ozark County Jail until a transport officer can take them to Ava, relieving the deputy of spending extra time during his shift to perform the transport himself. 

Martin says that DeGase and Wright County Sheriff Sonny Byerley have both shown interest in obtaining their own ICE contracts for their respective jails, and OCSD been helping them however they can. 

“They’re helping us out, so we’re helping them out. Small counties like ours, we get kicked around. We don’t have the budgets like Greene County and Christian County. Those guys have big departments and a plethora of people to work for them, but for places like little Ozark County, it’s tough. So, us little sheriffs have to stick together,” Martin said. 

Impact on Ozark County

Prior to taking on the contract, the jail staff included four individuals. Now, they anticipate the jail and transport staff to grow by 16 to 18 employees - and potentially more depending on how the transport side of the contract goes.

“More than likely in the future, we’re going to be the number one go-to for Midwest transport for Department of Homeland Security,” Martin said. DHS has indicated they’d be interested in Ozark County handling transportation for federal detainees who aren’t being housed in the Ozark County Jail, meaning OCSD transport guards would pick an individual up at one location and transport them to another location for court or to transfer to another facility, and be paid for those services. Martin said they are interested in handling those transportation needs for the Midwest region. 

“We’ll be able to employ the people here, provide the jobs here. So that helps out Ozark County,” he said. 

Although the contract specifically states that the sheriff’s department cannot publicly release specific financial details of the agreement, Martin says it is a big financial opportunity for the sheriff’s department and the county. 

He anticipates within a few years, the sheriff’s department may be able to operate independently without receiving any funds transferred from the county’s general revenue budget, which will be a big help to other local government offices. 

He said raising the starting pay of jailers from $12 an hour to $18.50 an hour is also big boom for employment opportunities here. 

“It’s unheard of, really. If you had told me five years ago we’re going to start jailers off at $18.50 an hour, I’d have told you that you were a liar,” Martin said. 

He anticipates the revenue generated will also help other areas of the sheriff’s department, and Ozark County deputies will get a much-needed and deserved raise after the program gets off the ground.

“This isn’t going to affect the deputies in their everyday duties. But, in the future, it will allow us to get their salaries up to be competitive with other counties in our area, so we can retain our officers.”

The sheriff says that he anticipates the deputies should see raises sometime this year. He said it will also allow the sheriff’s department to provide equipment to its staff. 

“Ozark County has never supplied equipment - things like uniforms, guns, belts… all the things that a person needs to do the job,” he said. “It’s always just been - ‘Here’s the job. Here’s the badge, and you supply everything else.’ So being able to supply the employees with the tools they need to do their everyday job is huge,” he said. 

Martin said he’s sure there will be adjustments to be made as they go along, but he’s confident that the contract will be a positive endeavor for Ozark County in the long run. 

It’s often said that the best ideas emerge from the toughest times, and that may be true in this case. 

What began as an idea to bring the sheriff’s department out of the 2022 budget crisis has the potential to provide the department with a level of long-term financial stability it has never experienced - and that is all thanks to the hard work and vision of those who work there.