ACLU says ICE contract did not receive enough votes to pass, despite Mason officials’ claims.
Image Credit: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout
***Note from The Tennessee Conservative: This article posted here for informational purposes only.
By Cassandra Stephenson [The Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee is challenging the outcome of a vote in Mason that would enter the city into a detention facility contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The organization sent a letter to town officials Friday demanding that Mason leadership halt the contract’s execution.
The Town of Mason’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved a contract with private prison corporation CoreCivic to reopen the West Tennessee Detention Facility as an immigration detention center on Tuesday, voting 4-1 with two abstentions.
The town’s separate but related contract with ICE received three ayes, two nays, and two abstentions.
Questions over the vote’s outcome surfaced immediately after the chaotic meeting concluded. Some officials reported that the vote was successful in approving the ICE contract, claiming the abstentions did not count toward the vote total and therefore the vote passed 3-2, a simple majority of the votes counted (but not the number of members present).
But the ACLU says this is an error, according to the letter sent to the town’s mayor, recorder and an attorney who spoke on behalf of the municipality during Tuesday’s meeting. The organization stated that, according to the town’s charter, the vote should have been counted based on members present. Thus, it would need four votes out of seven total votes to pass.
“The Town of Mason Charter says any form of board action should be passed by a majority of members present if there is a quorum,” ACLU of Tennessee Policy Director Bryan Davidson said Friday. The charter also states that the board can determine its own rules, and has chosen to follow Robert’s Rules of Order.
Based on the charter, state law and Robert’s Rules, the ACLU said the contract was not approved.
“We do not believe that this contract passed, and therefore any action taken by the mayor and board of the Town of Mason to further the execution of this contract is illegal and it’s invalid,” Davidson said.
Mayor Eddie Noeman, City Recorder Lureatha Harris, and attorney Nathan Bicks could not be immediately reached for comment.
The ACLU also states that because the start date of the contract with CoreCivic is dependent on the start date of the ICE contract, the CoreCivic agreement is also void.
ACLU Tennessee Legal Director Stella Yarbrough requested a written response from town leadership within seven days of the letter’s receipt. The organization also included a request for all communication between the mayor and board members and representatives of both CoreCivic and ICE, beginning in November 2024 through present day.
“Zooming out from the procedural deficiencies, there’s a lot of questions here around the total lack of transparency in this process,” Davidson added.
The ICE contract, a 200-page document, was presented to board members as a physical copy immediately before the Tuesday vote, he said, and was not available for public review online until two days later.
The majority of people who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting opposed using the currently empty prison facility as an immigration detention center.
Eloise Thompson, whose family has roots in Mason and surrounding areas going back to the 1870s, was one of the residents to stand in opposition.
“We’re just absolutely not interested in a for-profit prison operation … at the expense of human suffering,” she said on a media call Friday. “Not only does it come down to the human suffering part, it really can eat at one’s soul to feel a part of something like that.”
The community in Mason is interested in economic growth, she said, but “moving forward in the right way and in the way that lifts those around us and lifts our community.”
One Response
“The ICE contract, a 200-page document, was presented to board members as a physical copy immediately before the Tuesday vote, he said, and was not available for public review online until two days later.” STINKS!!