While the contract officially ended this week, the jail hadn't housed immigration detainees for nearly seven months. The last one came to the Norfolk jail on Feb. 22, a week after The Virginian-Pilot published a story exposing that, between September 2017 and February, the Sheriff's Office held some 830 people arrested by ICE.

In September 2017, the sheriff agreed to house ICE detainees for up to 72 hours each for $44.50 per person per day, until ICE officers could transfer them to one of their long term facilities. In a December 2018 interview with The Pilot, Baron said housing detainees protected Norfolk residents from "some bad characters." It also brought in cash. ICE paid more than $380,000 to house some 830 detainees at the Norfolk jail, although state officials siphoned off most of that.

In the first 1 1/2 years, the Norfolk Sheriff's Office accepted nearly every detainee ICE could bring, leading an ICE officer to thank the sheriff's office for its "unwavering support." On two occasions, Baron even waived a rule prohibiting ICE from leaving detainees at the jail for more than 72 hours.

One was in the summer of 2018 when ICE officers were scrambling to find beds for detainees that immigration officials were picking up at the border or arresting in Virginia during raids. The number of ICE detainees the sheriff's office was jailing spiked as a result.