By Kelly Heyboer | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Some of New Jersey’s biggest county governments are taking in millions of dollars by holding detained immigrants for the federal government as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on illegal immigration, according to a new report.

Hudson, Bergen and Essex counties are being paid a total of $6 million a month to hold immigrants in their county jails for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to data collected by WNYC radio.

The money ICE pays the New Jersey counties has climbed 46 percent between January 2015 and March 2018, according to invoices provided to WNYC by the counties.

About 2,000 immigrants can be held at the three county jails, the report said. Many are immigrants living in the country illegally who are awaiting deportation hearings. Others are applying for asylum. Some can stay in the jails for years.

Here are the average monthly payments by ICE to the three counties, according to the WNYC report:

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Essex County

Average monthly payment from ICE in 2015: $1,862,748

Average monthly payment from ICE in 2018: $2,755,818

Increase: 48 percent

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Hudson County

Average monthly payment from ICE in 2015: $1,276,155

Average monthly payment from ICE in 2018: $1,953,820

Increase: 53 percent

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Bergen County

Average monthly payment from ICE in 2015: $355,373

Average monthly payment from ICE in 2018: $1,114,556

Increase: 214 percent

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Why are county jails holding immigrants for ICE?

The federal agency has hundreds of contracts with local jails and private prison contractors to hold immigrant detainees.

Last year, ICE had contracts with nearly 850 local governments and federal authorities around the country to detain immigrants, according to data gathered by CityLab. Many of the contracts paid the local jails about $110 to $120 a day per inmate.

It is unclear how much it costs the local governments to house the detainees or how much profit they might be making on the contracts.

ICE also uses privately-run facilities, including the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility, to hold detainees.

Immigrants detained by ICE are held under civil, not criminal, law. But many are held under criminal-like conditions.

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Why are counties headed by Democrats agreeing to hold ICE detainees?

The contracts at the New Jersey county jails date back to the Obama administration or earlier. They are used to provide a steady flow of outside revenue to the country government.

In New Jersey, ICE arrests rose 42 percent in fiscal year 2017, largely due to a surge in arrests after President Donald Trump took office, according to federal statistics. That means more space is needed to hold detainees. Immigrants arrested in New York are also often held in New Jersey.

Some local officials have said the contracts to hold ICE detainees do not serve as an endorsement of the Trump administration’s recent efforts to step up enforcement of immigration laws.

Craig Apple, the Democratic sheriff of Albany, NY, believes his jail's contract with ICE is helping immigrant detainees, according to the WNYC report.

"These folks were going to be sent somewhere, and chances are if nobody stepped up they could have been placed in one of the tent cities being set up...They will be in an air-conditioned wing and getting help with access to free legal services," Apple said.

Though they are critical of the facilities, some immigrant advocates have also said it is good that detainees can be held in local jails, close to their families and attorneys, instead of being sent out of state.

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Is anyone protesting?

Several local governments have ended their contracts to hold detained immigrants for ICE in recent weeks, including cities and counties in California, Oregon and Texas.

Local immigrant advocates have been pushing other local governments to do the same to protest the Trump administration's treatment of families crossing the border illegally.

In New Jersey, protesters calling for an end to ICE's contract with Essex County clashed with police earlier this month.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democrat, called on Hudson County Thursday to drop its contract with ICE.

"As a county we shouldn’t be involved in helping to break up families," Fulop said on Twitter.

On Thursday, the Hudson County Board of Chosen Freeholders voted to approve a new contract to continue housing immigrant detainees at the county jail in Kearny over the objections of some protesters.

Under the new contract, ICE will pay Hudson County $120 per day for each immigrant detainee, a $10 increase over the previous contract.

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Why Essex, Hudson and Bergen counties?

ICE officials have not said why the agency offered contracts to the three northern New Jersey counties as sites for immigration detention. But, all three counties have large jails with available space and are easily accessible to New York City, which does not have any immigrant detention facilities.

Passaic County once had one of the nation’s largest immigrant detention sites in its county jail. It held as many as 500 detainees after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But, Passaic County ended its contract with the federal government in 2006. The decision came after allegations that detainees were being mistreated in the jail and some staged hunger strikes and protests.

Middlesex County's freeholders also voted in 2009 to end its $6 million annual contract to house federal immigrant detainees in its detention facility in North Brunswick. At the time, the freeholders said county corrections officers should not be asked to work as immigration agents.

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What are the conditions like for ICE detainees in New Jersey?

A human rights group released a scathing report last year that said New Jersey's immigrant detention facilities were giving detainees food with maggots, dirty drinking water, too few pairs of underwear and shoddy medical and mental health care.

Human Rights First, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group that advocates for immigrants, said its representatives interviewed more than 100 detained immigrants at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility, Essex County Correctional Facility and the Hudson County Correctional Facility for the study.

The report called the conditions "harsh and inhumane."

ICE officials responded to the group's findings with a statement: "While the agency has not had an opportunity to review the report, ICE remains committed to ensuring that all individuals in our custody are held and treated in a safe, secure and humane manner and that they have access to legal counsel, visitation, recreation and quality medical, mental health and dental care."

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Are children being held in the ICE detention facilities in New Jersey?

Only adult ICE detainees are being held in the Essex, Bergen and Hudson county jails.

The Center for Family Services, a social services agency based in Camden, has a federal contract to house immigrant children who arrive in the U.S. illegally, either with or without their parents.

The agency has housed a total of 90 children over the past year on a temporary basis, a spokeswoman said. The majority were children who crossed the border as unaccompanied minors, but three of the children being held at the facility last month were separated from their parents at the border.

At least two have since been reunited with their families and the third has had contact with his father through phone calls and video chats, said Rep. Donald Norcross, D-1st Dist., who visited the facility earlier this week.

Norcross said the Camden facility resembled a boarding home and none of the children were being held in prison-like conditions.

"What we saw is they were being taken care of like we would take care of our own children," Norcross said.

The center has a $4 million contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to house immigrant children, federal officials said.

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More about immigration in N.J.:

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook.