Steuart Pittman, the Democratic candidate for Anne Arundel County Executive, has pledged to close the ICE detention center at the Ordnance Road Correction Center in Glen Burnie, and to open a drug rehab facility there instead.
County Executive Steve Schuh, Pittman’s opponent in this year’s election, signed two agreements with ICE since President Trump took office—the intergovernmental service agreement that allows ICE to keep up to 130 people at the detention center while they await determination of their status, and the 287(g) program whereby detention officers are trained by ICE to interrogate people about their immigration status when they are booked, regardless of whether they are guilty of any crime. Pittman has pledged to cancel both agreements.
The current population of detainees at the center was reported this week to be 119, with at least three having been separated from their young children at the border.
“We should be confronting the real threat to our communities, a severe shortage of treatment beds for county residents who are trying desperately to recover from opioid addiction,” says Pittman. “ICE is using up to 130 beds here to pull apart families, it’s just wrong.”
“Steve Schuh has aligned himself with a national political movement that blames local problems on hard-working immigrant families,” says Pittman. “Using scare tactics is an easy alternative to discussing what people really care about—schools, development, public safety and the environment.”
Pittman will join community members at a candlelight vigil at 5 p.m. today at the Glen Burnie Detention Center. For more information on Steuart Pittman’s campaign for Anne Arundel County Executive, please visit www.pittmanforpeople.com.