A Massachusetts sheriff wants to help President-elect Donald Trump build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border — by offering up inmates to work on the project.
(FOX)- Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, a long-time proponent of strict immigration enforcement, presented his idea at an inauguration speech on Wednesday marking his fourth six-year term in office.
On Thursday, the sheriff told Boston’s Herald Radio that he has not heard from Trump himself, but his idea is being reviewed by the new administration’s staff.
“They have it, I believe it’s going over to their domestic policy advisers,” Hodgson said. “We will have to wait to see if it’s something the president-elect is interested in.”
Advocates of more lenient immigration policies quickly denounced the sheriff’s proposal, according to the Fox affiliate in Boston. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is threatening to go all out to block the sheriff’s plans, Fox25Boston.com reports.
Carol Rose, the executive director of the state’s ACLU chapter, said in a statement: “Sheriff Hodgson’s proposal to use the labor of the men and women in his custody to ‘build the wall’ is perverse, inhumane and likely unconstitutional.”