NOT IN OUR NAME: End ICE Detention in Clark County
A community explainer from Do Something Southern Indiana
Clark County is quietly holding immigration detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in our county jail, and most people in Clark County have no idea this is happening. No one voted on it. No public hearing was held. The arrangement was entered into voluntarily — and it can be ended voluntarily.
We are not asking you to take our word for any of it. We are asking you to look at the facts and decide for yourself if you want this being done in your name.
What is actually happening in Clark County?
Clark County operates a paid agreement to hold ICE detainees in the county jail. The Sheriff has confirmed the arrangement is voluntary.
We are one of just five Indiana counties doing this — Clark, Clay, Clinton, Cass, and Fulton. Eighty-seven counties have not.
This is a business deal, not a legal mandate. It is an intergovernmental service agreement that the county can terminate on thirty days’ notice.
It generates revenue that flows into the county’s general fund. How much, on what terms, and where exactly it goes has never been disclosed to the public. There is no public accounting. The public has never seen the receipts.
“We would have to raise taxes if I wasn’t doing this.”
— Sheriff Scottie Maples
In his own words, this is about money. Not public safety. Not a legal obligation. Revenue.
Public money, raised in a public facility by public officials, is being earned by holding human beings, and the people of Clark County have never been shown the books.
Wait — isn’t the county required to do this?
Short answer: no.
You may hear that a state law — Senate Enrolled Act 76 (sometimes called SEA 76) — forces Clark County’s hand. It does not.
SEA 76 requires Indiana jails to honor ICE detainers. If someone is already in custody and ICE places a hold, the jail must hold them briefly so ICE can pick them up. It does NOT require any county to enter a paid agreement with ICE
Are our streets safer?
The national picture matters, because no site is stand-alone; each is a cog in a much larger system. Clark County’s beds are part of that machine.
As of April 2026, 70.8% of people in ICE detention nationwide had no criminal conviction of any kind (TRAC, Syracuse University).
Only about 5% had been convicted of a violent offense (Cato Institute).
Many of the convictions that are cited are minor — including traffic violations.
This is a sharp departure from the promise that enforcement would focus on “the worst first.” Increasingly, the people filling detention beds are not violent criminals. They are workers, parents, and longtime neighbors — many married to U.S. citizens,raising U.S.-citizen children, doing it “the right way” and taken into custody while fulfilling their obligations.
Every detention bed represents a family in crisis.
When the breadwinner is detained, a spouse is left scrambling — for childcare, for rent, for an attorney — while children live with the trauma of a missing parent. Fewer beds means fewer families in crisis.
Clark County isn’t the only place fighting this
. The largest ICE detention site in the state is Miami Correctional Facility near Bunker Hill — a state-run prison holding roughly 600 ICE detainees under a contract to hold up to 1,000. The Indiana Organizing Project leads the campaign to end detention there, and their work teaches us several things that apply directly to Clark County:
Detention is a national machine, and local beds feed it. Detainees are routinely moved between facilities with the apparent purpose to make it more difficult for the detainees to contact family and legal representation. .
The conditions are real, and the stakes are life and death. The Indiana Organizing Project reports chronic understaffing at Miami and that two detainees died there between February and April 2026, alongside reports of inadequate medical care. Offering up detention space means offering up space inside that reality.
People are often detained illegally — and wait months to find out. From October 2025 to February 2026, federal judges ruled more than 4,400 times that the government was holding someone unlawfully. People can wait three months or more for that ruling — three months in a jail cell while their family struggles at home.
“We would not be doing it if there were not a built-in profit.” That is how Indiana’s own Corrections Commissioner described the Miami contract. It is the same logic our Sheriff has voiced. The honesty is useful: it tells us exactly what is driving these decisions.
Fewer beds means fewer families harmed. National ICE detention peaked near 73,000 in January 2026 and fell to roughly 60,000 by April. One of the most effective ways to limit harm is to limit the space ICE can rent. Every bed Clark County declines to offer is a bed the system does not have.
Why this is the right conversation for Clark County
Follow the money. The county is taking detention revenue at the very moment a separate state law (SEA 1) is cutting Clark County’s property tax revenue — by an estimated $1.34 million in 2026 and roughly $2 million in 2027. Detention money is quietly backfilling a budget hole, out of public view, with human beings as the line item.
Public money, public decisions. This is being done with public resources, in a public facility, by public officials — but without public input or public accounting. At the very least, the community deserves to see the receipts.
We have a choice. Marion County faced the same situation. The community organized, showed up, and its sheriff stopped housing ICE detainees — not because a law required it, but because the community asked. Clark County can have that same conversation.
We don’t have to comply in advance.
What we’re asking
We are not asking you to agree with us today. We are asking you to:
Learn the facts — and check them yourself.
Talk about it — with neighbors, at the dinner table, at public meetings.
Ask the questions the public hasn’t gotten answers to: How much revenue? On what terms? Can the county be held fiscally liable should any lawsuits be filed? Why us — and why now?
Show up as the campaign builds toward the Sheriff’s budget presentation this fall.
Get Involved. Connect with us to learn more, join conversations, and help shape community decisions.
Check our website resource page for names, numbers and emails of county officials. Let them know Not in Our Name.
This is our county. These decisions are made in our name. We think the people of Clark County deserve to know — and to decide.
Get involved
Do Something Southern Indiana is a nonpartisan civic organization of more than 800 neighbors across Southern Indiana. To learn more, get involved, or join the next conversation, connect with us at Do Something Southern Indiana.
Sources & notes
National detention figures: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), Syracuse University — 70.8% of ICE detainees had no criminal conviction as of April 2026. Violent-conviction share (~5%): Cato Institute.
Miami Correctional facts, conditions, deaths, and the Corrections Commissioner quote: The Indiana Organizing Project, “End ICE Detention at Miami Correctional,” indianaorganizing.org.
Illegal-detention rulings (4,400+, Oct. 2025–Feb. 2026): federal court reporting compiled by the Indiana Organizing Project and national outlets.
Clark County arrangement, voluntariness, and Sheriff’s statement: on-the-record public reporting and the Sheriff’s own remarks. The dollar amount of general-fund revenue has not been publicly disclosed or accounted for.
SEA 1 property-tax projections ($1.34M in 2026, ~$2M in 2027): state fiscal estimates for Clark County.
DSSIN is a nonpartisan civic-education effort. This explainer is intended to inform public discussion, not to direct any specific official action.