Massachusetts Sheriff Proposes Using Inmates to Build Trump's Wall
President-elect Donald Trump made border control and immigration a central issue during his campaign run. Trump has pledged to build a wall along America’s southern border and make Mexico pay for it instead of U.S. taxpayers.
Trump said on Friday, Americans may have to foot the bill for expediency purposes before Mexico could pay for the wall that could cost billions of dollars to the build.
“The dishonest media does not report that any money spent on building the Great Wall (for sake of speed), will be paid back by Mexico later!” Trump wrote on Twitter Friday morning.
Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodges of Massachusetts has come up with an idea to cut the cost for the Southern border wall by allowing prison inmates to build it.
“This is an opportunity for inmates from across the country to be dispatched to the wall where we will be able to not only save tax payers millions of millions of dollars in building it but giving the inmates a chance to do something for America but also learn a skill and prepare themselves for reentry,” Hodges said during an interview on FOX Business Network Risk & Reward with Deirdre Bolton.
Hodges said no other project will have as much of a positive impact on both the inmates and the country. According to Hodges, the use of inmates for labor is allowed under a volunteer process where many inmates across the country have been participated in community projects through various sheriffs.
“This really broadens out to more like a Peace Corp type prison program where these inmates would be able to get a chance to be in another part of the country it could be for a natural disaster, it could be laying the pipes that may not be able to be funded right now in Flint, Michigan,” he said.
When asked if the inmates would receive wages for their work, Hodges responded, “They earn their good time is basically how it works and the experience of being there is almost an opportunity for them to learn a trait and work off their sentence.”