ICE booked Camp Dodge up to 10 nights, deal says

The contract also shows up to 1,100 Swift detainees were expected, but about 500 were briefly housed.
Jennifer Jacobs
Des Moines Register
Jan. 03, 2007

When federal immigration officials booked Camp Dodge as a temporary detention facility for people arrested at Swift & Co., they planned to house up to 1,100 undocumented workers for as many as 10 nights, a government contract shows.

That would have cost U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement $32,000 - but immigration officials stayed at the state military training site in Johnston for fewer days and housed about 500 people.

Federal agents at first booked Camp Dodge starting Dec. 4, the original date for the raid.

But "Operation Wagon Train'' was pushed to Dec. 12 because Swift took legal action in an attempt to block the raid. Federal agents were left with less time at the military facility because "Camp Dodge had something going on," said Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for ICE.

Advocates for immigrants have complained that the workers were moved out of state so quickly that many didn't have a chance to meet with lawyers, pastors or their families.

A total of 1,283 workers from Swift meatpacking plants in Marshalltown and in five other states were arrested on immigration violations, the biggest such crackdown in history at one company.

The intergovernmental service agreement between ICE and Camp Dodge, dated Dec. 4, prohibited Iowa Army National Guard officials from disclosing any details about it without permission from ICE.

ICE booked a training complex that typically holds between 400 and 700 soldiers.

The federal agency reserved access to communications support, cleaning services, beds and 1,100 sets of linens (one blanket, two sheets, one pillow, one pillowcase, a mattress cover, a towel and a washcloth for each).

They did not ask Camp Dodge to provide meals. "We brought in our own food," Zuieback said.

The agreement appears to contradict complaints that ICE officials failed to advise Camp Dodge of the size and scope of the raid, Zuieback said.

A week after the raid, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and Maj. Gen. Ron Dardis, the top officer of the Iowa National Guard, wrote a letter to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, saying Iowa officials will not cooperate with federal immigration officials in the future unless they provide better coordination with state officials.

ICE gave Iowa little chance to prepare to deal with the humanitarian consequences of the raids, Vilsack and Dardis said, and the "information blackout" ICE imposed after the raids made the situation worse.

The Dec. 4 agreement spells out a daily rental fee for Camp Dodge dormitories that were to be used to "house aliens."

Another invoice, dated Nov. 21, billed the federal government for $1,575 for services for "Operation Wagon Train." That was for an ICE planning team that used Camp Dodge early on, Zuieback said.

The Dec. 4 agreement states that the federal government will be billed only for the actual services provided. Officials at Camp Dodge on Friday said that they have not finished the invoice that will detail what services ICE used.

ICE said Dec. 14 that all the detainees would have been moved out by the end of that day.

More than 100 Swift workers were flown out of Des Moines by plane. ICE used the U.S. Marshals Service's air fleet, part of what's called the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System, Zuieback said. The system uses aircraft, cars, vans and buses to move 300,000 prisoners or illegal immigrants a year, according to its Web site.

Details on how much other aspects of the raid cost were not immediately available.