CCA and Mayor of Southwest Ranches want federal dollars, while some citizens are up in arms over a covert plan to build a sprawling detention center.
In one of South Florida’s upscale, rural enclaves, where peacocks roam and horse trails are as common as sidewalks, town leaders decided to bring in much of their money from an unusual business: a prison.
Only the leaders of Southwest Ranches kept their plans quiet from residents for almost a decade, and the project has now ballooned into what would be among the federal government’s largest immigrant detention centers. The town would have to pay $150,000 each year to keep the prison, but officials say the town would turn a profit by getting 4 percent of what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pays the company operating the prison to hold inmates there.
Many residents finally caught wind of the idea this year, when the immigration agency announced a tentative deal, and they’re angry. They’ve held protests at public meetings, contemplated whether to recall the mayor before his March election and whether to amend the town charter to make it easier to fire the city attorney pushing the deal.