The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department will terminate its contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins says he made the decision to end the contract to make room for 200 to 250 incarcerated women.
“There really are more females, more ladies going to jail for a whole host of reasons. When you have the scarcity of mental health beds, when you have the scarcity of substance abuse beds, and when you have ladies in battering situations or being battered, bad things happen,” Tompkins said.
Tompkins says his decision is not politically motivated.
“To me, this is not political. This is important. This is about saving lives,” Tompkins said. “We haven’t received one dollar working with the feds on this program since 2009.”