We recently spoke with Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson for an update on how his office has handled COVID-19 at the Bristol County House of Correction and his growing concern over how the Biden Administration is handling the influx of immigrants entering through the southern border.
Watch our complete interview with Sheriff Hodgson.
When we spoke with Sheriff Hodgson last year, cases of COVID-19 were a concern among prison staff as well as the inmate and detainee population. In total 98 inmates or detainees contracted the virus out of a population of over 900. The sheriff says there are currently no active COVID cases at the facility.
The focus is now on getting the prison population access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
The sheriff says in-person visitations remain restricted but other signs of normal activity have returned, mainly requests for the deployment of prisoner litter and restoration crews across the county.
When the pandemic began immigration advocates sued Sheriff Hodgson and the jail, challenging unsafe conditions at the House of Correction and called for the early release of detainees under the care at the detention facility operated in conjunction with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All but seven of the detainees were released and a settlement in the suit was announced last week. Sheriff Hodgson says the outcome of the case will not involve any monetary settlement and that, in fact, he and his office followed all federal and state health and safety guidelines.
Sheriff Hodgson joined over 270 other sheriffs across the country authoring a letter to President Biden calling for stricter immigration enforcement on our country’s southern border. The sheriff says the president showed disregard for the immigration mitigation policies instituted by former President Donald Trump, policies the sheriff said were making a difference in limiting the number of immigrants entering the United States.
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