The federal immigration agency that pulled its female detainees from the Monroe County jail this week said it did so because the Stock Island facility is too far from its Miami offices.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) instead will send the women to the Glades County jail in Moore Haven, which also is $1.36 per-detainee per-day cheaper, agency officials told The Citizen Thursday.

"This is a bureaucratic response," Monroe County Sheriff Bob Peryam said. "We were housing between 40 to 60 inmates a day for them. How do you just pull out after 15 years without a phone call? If they would have called me up and said transportation is an issue, we could have worked with them on it. We've picked up prisoners from Miami before and we could feasibly do it again if that's what's needed."

ICE's announcement that it would use the Monroe County Detention Center only on a limited, as-needed basis was sudden and unexpected, and strips the county of an average $1 million a year it received for housing, feeding and providing light medical care for ICE's detainees.

The contract has generated at least $30 million since the housing program's inception in 1993.

The money went straight into Monroe County government's coffers, but Peryam expects the loss to affect his agency as well. Peryam said it's too early to tell what the scope of that impact will be.

The loss comes at a time when the County Commission is cutting the budget amid the national economic crisis, and when Peryam is struggling to find middle ground with the Fraternal Order of Police union. Sheriff's Office deputies in that union are petitioning Peryam for more money, but apparently have reached an impasse.

alinhardt@keysnews.com