(Lawson Wulsin contributed to this report).
Organizers of anti-ICE protests outside the Butler County Jail in Hamilton say they stopped holding demonstrations there in July after detainees, their family members and lawyers told them jail officials were placing the inmates in lockdown during the protests.
Samantha Searls of Ignite Peace, a non-violent advocacy group for immigrants, said the lockdowns were punitive and aimed at suppressing the peaceful demonstrations.
“There have been at least three gatherings originally planned outside the jail that we decided to move,” Searls said in a text. “It’s a violation of free speech — they’re punishing innocent people when others are exercising their right to protest, essentially censoring advocates under threat of retaliating against the very people we’re there to support.”
Butler County Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer said a lockdown occurred during only one protest and that it included all inmates, not just ICE detainees. He couldn’t recall the date of the protest but said that, with only 30 guards to control 1,000 inmates, a large protest outside the jail’s fence is a security concern within.
“If you’ve ever been around three or 400 protesters, they can amass a pretty good push,” he said. “So anytime something like that happens, it could be a threat to the facility. That’s why we locked down everybody. And it’s not just ICE inmates. Everybody was locked down while (the protestors) were here.”
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Dwyer was likely referring to a June 8 rally outside the jail protesting the arrest and detention of 19-year-old Emerson Colindres, a Honduran immigrant detained by ICE on June 4 and deported 13 days later. Colindres, a recent Gilbert A. Dater High School graduate and soccer standout recruited by the Cincy Galaxy soccer club, had no criminal record.
Hundreds of protestors in front of the jail on June 8 marched, chanted and sang along Hanover Street. Hamilton police said they intervened when car traffic in front of the jail was obstructed. One protestor, a 26-year-old Dayton woman, was arrested on charges of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
Butler County Jail data from September 18-21 shows that, of the 1,089 inmates at the jail’s three facilities, 341 were ICE detainees. The jail expects to earn $4.7 million in 2025 from its contract with ICE, Dwyer said, or about 10 percent of the Butler County Sheriff Department’s $47.3 million budget. Under the February 2025 contract, ICE pays the jail a daily rate of $68 for each detainee and an hourly rate of $36 for county transportation, with the jail providing up to 300 beds for ICE detainees. The contract is part of ICE’s Jail Enforcement Model (JEM) Program, which authorizes sheriff deputies across the country to help identify, process and detain removable immigrants in their facilities.
Colindres, contacted by phone in Honduras, confirmed that all inmates were forced back to their cells during lockdowns, but they were seldom given a reason for the lockdowns. During his 13 days there, he said there was a lockdown every day, often during the inmates’ 90-minute recreation periods. “Your time always gets cut short because, even if it’s like a small lockdown — like 30 minutes or 40 minutes — you don’t have that much time outdoors anyway.”
Searls said one of the detainees who asked that the protests be moved away from the front of the jail to avoid lockdowns was Ayman Soliman, the Muslim cleric and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital chaplain who was held for 72 days in the Butler County Jail before his release on Sept. 19. In a case that garnered national attention, the Department of Homeland Security restored Soliman’s asylum status and dropped deportation efforts after court filings revealed errors and inconsistencies in the government’s evidence portraying him as a terrorist.
Detainees also reported being subjected to additional harsh conditions inside the jail.
In a press conference following his release, Soliman offered a mixed review of his treatment at the jail. “Like any other place in the world, there are some very, very good people here. And there are some awful humans that shouldn’t actually be in that jail. They should be in a mental hospital, away in quarantine. They can’t deal with humans.”
During his intake at the jail, Soliman said he was forced to strip naked in front of other inmates after he had waited 11 hours in a cold holding area in only his T-shirt and underwear and was denied a restroom visit for five hours. Public nudity is strictly prohibited in Islam.
Dwyer responded to Soliman’s comments in an email. “No inmate or detainee is ever stripped before being jailed. Once inside the facility and after being booked in, detainees will eventually be showered out and changed from their civilian clothing to jail clothing. During that process, the individual is also given a towel.”
Colindres said that, during his intake, some jail staffers harassed detainees by asking them intimate questions in English, assuming they would not understand. “They just started bothering them (with questions) like, ‘Do you like men? Or ‘Do you like penises?’ Stuff like that.”
Dwyer said some booking questions do pertain to LGBTQ+ issues “but nothing like you were quoting.”