Over 200 people stood out on Battle Creek’s Michigan Ave. to protest the separation of children from their mothers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while they are in America illegally.
The jail is near capacity, thanks in large part to the increase in outside inmates being housed. When the Calhoun County Jail was constructed in 1994, it was purposefully built with more beds so that way they could house inmates from outside the county; by far the largest entity housing detainees is ICE, and the number is rising; in 2016, there was an average of 98 ICE detainees, and it’s now at an average of 220.
The video visitation system allows family members to speak with inmates and detainees for free at a video kiosk in the jail, or they can do it from anywhere for a fee, with a smartphone app.
Dr. Lukasz Niec was picked up by ICE at his Kalamazoo area home last week, and has been lodged at the Calhoun County Jail ever since. Allegations of child abuse were raised during a custody dispute with the mother of his daughter.