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The Indiana Department of Correction plans to ask for $15.8 million in state funding to prepare an Indiana correctional facility to house immigration detainees.
The DOC is expected to make the funding request at a State Budget Committee meeting Wednesday morning at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, according to an agenda for the meeting.
Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the Trump administration would partner with Indiana Gov. Mike Braun to secure about 1,000 beds at the Miami Correctional Facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.
The 3,200-bed facility is about 70 miles north of Indianapolis in Bunker Hill, on the campus of the Grissom Air Force Reserve Base.
The DOC’s request, which is summarized in the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting, says the agency needs the state funding in order to prepare the correctional facility for ICE detainees.
“Upon execution of the agreement with the Federal Government, the facility will require a series of infrastructure upgrades and equipment acquisitions, including enhancements to perimeter fencing and lighting, temporary housing structures, modifications to the intake and processing areas, installation of drug detection and drone prevention systems, and x-ray screening equipment,” the agenda item says.
Federal officials have nicknamed the site the “Speedway Slammer,” last month posting a manipulated image of an ICE-branded IndyCar outside of the facility.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway told IBJ last month that it had asked federal officials to cease use of the imagery, and that it had not been aware that federal officials were planning to use it. The town of Speedway has also said it was not involved with and did not have prior knowledge of the “Speedway Slammer.”
Representatives from the DOC did not immediately respond to questions from IBJ on Monday, including when the facility might begin receiving detainees, why the specific upgrades are necessary and whether the state expects that the federal government will reimburse it for the upgrades.
The Governor’s Office referred questions to the DOC.
According to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, Braun said last month that he expected the federal government to pay for the cost of housing detainees.
“My goal is that anything we’re doing for them that we get compensated for it,” he said.
But DOC spokeswoman Annie Goeller told the Chronicle that there would be no new construction or expansion of the existing Miami Correctional Facility and that prison would simply make 1,000 existing unused beds available to the federal government.
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