Jailing Immigrants Means Money and Jobs for Poor Areas. Is This Deal Humane?
The culmination of a nine-month investigation into a local jail in rural Yuba County by KQED reporters Lisa Pickoff-White and Julie Small. The jail depends on millions of dollars a year from the federal government to hold immigrants facing deportation. But the jail has come under fire for poor medical care. We talk to an inmate who was seriously ill and says jail doctors wouldn’t give him the medicine. We also hear from Yuba County locals who depend on money from the jail to fund the sheriff’s department. They say the county’s getting caught in the political crossfire over immigration.