Editor:

I read the one-sided arguments concerning the proposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center being located in Evanston in the paper.

I also read the letter to the editor that Jim Hissong placed in the paper. I wish the commissioners would consider the other side of the story. Jim Hissong works for the county, and there is no doubt that he will side with the commissioners

The only positive thing that would come from the detention is jobs — but at what cost? It would destroy other prospects from putting their businesses and companies in the thousand acres. Who wants to work and invest next to a prison? The location of the center is located a few hundred yards from the entrance to the thousand acres.

If I were an industry wanting to invest, I would not put it next to a detention center that incarcerates people wanting to come to the United States. Would Microsoft, Amazon or Elon

Musk of Tesla want to locate a facility near a detention center? I think not.

The current U.S. attorney general wants to separate families and put children in cages, when all they want to do is flee the countries they are coming from and come to the U.S. to find work and escape from the tyranny, poverty and even death they face in their country. Not all the detainees are murderers and rapists. We need to give them a way to become citizens and add to our prosperity.

Why doesn’t Utah want to have the detention center? Could it be because of the stench that comes with it? Utah has fought jails and prisons and they don’t want this in their neighborhoods. Most of the detainees will come from Utah — let them take care of their own problems.

We have put people in detention camps before. At Heart Mountain in Park County we did the same thing to innocent Japanese people. That was not right back then, and it isn’t right now. We don’t need those kinds of jobs in Uinta County.

I would rather have Evanston become a sanctuary city. We have a lot of legal Hispanics living in Evanston and Uinta County. They are hardworking people who contribute to our economy. What kind of message are we giving them? There are a lot of dreamers that have lived in the United States their whole life. They are good people whose only crime is that their parents brought them here. They have been educated, spent years here just like our children and have gone on to contribute to our communities.

Until Congress can come up with an immigration policy that considers all the problems, we should not put people in detention centers whose only crime is coming here illegally. We have jails and prisons for the ones who are rapists and murderers. They should be prosecuted in court just like the murderers and rapists that are legal citizens.

One last thing to think about is revenue for the local governments. The county will retain the land, so the detention center won’t pay property tax. The way I understand that, the county will own the buildings, so they won’t be taxed. The county will be responsible for demolition if Congress gets its act together and we no longer need detention centers.

The county and the city will need to expand the water and the sewer so the taxpayers will be responsible for putting in the road. It sounds like a sweet deal for the detention center and the tax payers get stuck with all the costs.

By comparison, the windmills paid over $3 million last year in property taxes to the local governments and will add another $3 million per year when the proposed windmills are completed.

To me it sounds like a great deal for the private prison company but a lousy deal for the taxpayers in Uinta County. I would love to have the new jobs — but at what cost?

Rick Sather

Evanston