GREENE COUNTY, Mo. – Records from Greene County show the jail made an agreement with the federal government weeks before President Donald Trump won the election and unveiled official plans to carry out mass deportations.
Sheriff Jim Arnott has vocally supported the president’s deportation plans. In January, Arnott told Ozarks First his office had been anticipating Trump’s executive order and was fully prepared to back the directive.
Ozarks First Investigates obtained a copy of the contract between the Greene County Jail and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It shows the jail’s existing Intergovernmental Agreement was modified under the Biden administration.
In October 2024, the jail added ICE to its existing contract, months after Trump made campaign promises to carry out mass deportations, but still nearly a month before the Nov. 9, 2024 presidential election.
Ozarks First Investigates also looked into how many ICE detainees the jail can hold and how close it’s been to its capacity of federal inmates since signing the deal.
The contract shows Greene County makes $100 per ICE detainee per day and can earn an additional hourly rate for guard/transportation assistance. The maximum number of federal prisoners able to be housed in the jail is 375.
According to a spokesperson for the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, the local ICE office has arrested people and place detainers for decades. ICE would pick them up usually the day after and take them to a detention facility that would hold ICE inmates like the Greene County Jail does now. Previously, ICE detainees only stayed in the county jail for a day or two.
However, Feb. 19, 2025 was the first day since signing the agreement that the jail began housing ICE holds for immigration hearings and deportation.
By Feb. 24 2025, 173 people were being held in the Greene County Jail as ICE detainees.
A Greene County Detention Center officer is charged with stealing money from an ICE detainee around that time.
Court documents show the Greene County Sheriff’s Office reviewed jail footage showing detention officer Caydon Lewis messing with the inmate’s bag that stored $900 on Feb. 23. Lewis is charged with a Class D Felony which is punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Since then, ICE holds at the jail have fluctuated significantly ranging from a few people to a few hundred people daily. On March 20, 2025 the Greene County Jail held 247 inmates for ICE.
Ozarks First Investigates is working to learn how much money the county has earned through its contract to hold ICE detainees, but financial records are not yet available.
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