***For Immediate Release***
August 19, 2025
Contact: Sierra Salgado Pirigyi
Communications Director, Nebraska Appleseed
Office: 402-438-8853 x116
sierrasp@neappleseed.org
RELEASE: Response To Proposed ICE Detention Facility in Nebraska
Nebraskans want immigration policy change, not punishment.
LINCOLN, NE – Today it was reported on and confirmed by Governor Jim Pillen that ICE has plans to use Nebraska as part of nationwide large-scale immigration detention, including building a 300-bed immigrant detention facility in Red Willow County, Nebraska, as early as next month. This is part of a harmful, dangerous and rapid expansion that includes the potential for 125 additional ICE detention facilities across the nation.
Nebraska Appleseed Immigrants & Communities Program Director Darcy Tromanhauser issued the following statement in response:
“This is not who we are. Nebraska is a state that welcomes our neighbors and values the contributions of local moms, dads, coworkers, neighbors, and friends. Nebraskans do not want us to be known as a state that separates families and locks up and detains members of our communities.
Nebraskans across the state and across sectors for years have called for our immigration laws to be updated. What we need are modern immigration laws that recognize the strength and value that immigrant Nebraskans bring to the state, not a large-scale federal detention camp.
Together with many community partners across the state, we will continue to advocate for positive immigration laws that fix our long-outdated immigration system and support local communities – not cruel and harmful detainment camps that repeat a deeply ugly pattern of history and are completely contrary to Nebraska values. Nebraskans want policy change, not punishment.”
100% agree there is no place for this in Nebraska
How can we effectively protest? This is outrageous!!
The governor you can’t even take care of the situations we have right now with our “overcrowding” prison and he wants to eliminate inmates from McCook and move them to where!?!? His home!? Or Into our overcrowded NSP are overcrowded Tecumseh and other facilities! He already tries to keep every inmate incarcerated that is right now eligible for parole that is right now eligible for work release. He needs to get a hold of the parole board and get them in line!! start getting people out of the prisons, hundreds and hundreds of inmates that are eligible right now today!! people that have been in there for many years with no write ups working their programs that have done the work and proven that they are ready to walk out of there and make a difference in their communities and in their families! Governor get control of the problem we got right now, instead adding more gas to the fire!! Stop looking at the financial business part of things and start caring about what Nebraska really stands for!!
Signed, A Wife to a long time NSP inmate! Who rightfully deserves and has earned and has proven that he is ready for the community and to be out here united with his family!
History will look back at this inhumane terror campaign by the Trump administration as a dark, evil time for this country. President Obama deported 2.5 million illegal immigrants, 90% with criminal records, removed with due process through the legal system. Americans never saw masked thugs waiting outside courthouses or swiping people from their neighborhoods using ghestapo tactics and detention camps reminiscent of Hitlers 1930’s Germany. As an American and proud Nebraskan we can not be complicit and certainly not become part of this campaign of terror. History will remember where Nebraska stood in this time.
There is absolutely nothing about this action that shows leadership or any real understanding of what Nebraskans want. When elections happen in the Fall, all of us need to get out to vote. Before that, we need to stop this from happening.
Frustrating, disconcerting, horrifying, embarrassing, unnecessary, harmful – these are just a few of the appropriate words to describe this eventuality. Every day we see history repeating itself and beyond. Hoping against hope that this building project can be stopped!!!
How can this happen and what can we do to stop it? How dare they call this a Work Ethic Camp? Am I the only one that remembers the sign at the entrance of Auschwitz? This is so wrong! What can we do to stop it?
This is cruel and unusual punishment for innocent people who don’t deserve it. This isn’t what Nebraska stands for. It’s time we stop this madness here in Nebraska and across the country!
Secure the border. That was what the public wanted. This is NOT what we asked for. This is cruel and not a popular Nebraska opinion. We need immigrant workers for our farm economy. To pretend we don’t is political pandering, not good state governing.
Thank you for advocating for respect of the rule of law, protection of human rights, upholding human dignity, and due process. The notion that Nebraska will become a sight for the cruel and lawless overreaching policies of this administration toward both illegal and legal immigrants is deeply troubling.