Nebraska State Patrol Superintendent Bryan Waugh, at podium, joins Nebraska Adj. Gen. Craig Strong at left and Nebraska Department of Correctional Services Director Rob Jeffreys as the state announces work a new ICE facility. Aug 19. 2025. (Juan Salinas II/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — As Nebraska turns a state prison into a detention center for migrants facing deportation proceedings, the Nebraska Corrections Department confirmed where it moved state inmates from the McCook Work Ethic Camp to make room.
The transition plan, announced Aug. 19, will convert the Work Ethic Camp as soon as this week. Gov. Jim Pillen and federal officials said then it would be a “Midwest hub” for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
As of that announcement, Nebraska housed 186 men at the McCook low-security facility, a total population that fluctuated with normal transfers in. The Corrections Department transferred them to other state facilities as follows:
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103 inmates to low-security-level community corrections centers in Omaha and Lincoln.
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59 inmates to minimum custody housing at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln.
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17 inmates to minimum custody housing at the Omaha Correctional Center.
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1 inmates placed into post-release supervision.
“Several” were also temporarily transferred to the Reception and Treatment and county jails, “due to behavioral reasons and unrelated to the WEC transition,” a department spokesperson said.
Rob Jeffreys, head of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, speaks to the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee. Jan. 25, 2025. (Cindy Gonzalez/Nebraska Examiner)
State lawmakers created a “work ethic camp” in state law by a 41-1 vote in April 1997 at the request of McCook native and then-Gov. Ben Nelson. It opened in 2001, designed to reduce prison crowding through rehabilitative programming for low-risk offenders as a method to free up bed space for more violent offenders at other prisons.
The facility had served adult men convicted of felonies who needed substance use treatment or cognitive restructuring. It had a state budget of $10.2 million.
Rob Jeffreys, director of the Correctional Services Department, said last week in a court filing that all inmates formerly assigned to the Work Ethic Camp had been moved to other prisons that were “available, suitable and appropriate to … meet the inmates’ programming requirements.”
“In my opinion as NDCS director, the inmates transferred out of the facility to make room for [U.S. Department of Homeland Security] detainees will receive programming at the transfer facility that is equivalent to or meets the programming the inmates received at the facility,” Jeffreys said in the sworn statement.
If Nebraska needs to transport state inmates back to the Work Ethic Camp alongside ICE detainees, the state would incur costs for doing so. The Sept. 30 contract is in place for an initial two-year period. Pillen’s office estimates it could annually net Nebraska about $14 million. The rebranded state-federal facility will remain state-owned and operated.
A lawsuit filed Oct. 15 argues Pillen and Jeffreys violated the Nebraska Constitution and state law in entering the ICE contract and sought to “usurp” legislative authority. A Red Willow County District Court judge allowed the case to proceed but declined to pause the Nebraska-ICE deal while it is argued, ruling that Pillen and Jeffreys complied with the law.
Officials have said the first ICE detainees are expected to be sent to McCook by the end of the week. ICE inspectors completed walkthroughs of the facility last week and certified it for federal use.
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