Georgia: Identifying illegal immigrants

DALTON, Ga. — Whitfield County jailers using federal records have since Aug. 1 found 34 possibly illegal immigrants who may be subject to deportation.

“Our officers now have the ability to hold someone at the jail and basically start the deportation process,” Whitfield County Sheriff Scott Chitwood said.

Sheriff Chitwood calls the 287(g) program a “win-win” tool that helps his deputies check the immigration status of those arrested without bogging down the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Atlanta office. The sheriff’s department began training on the program in February and received equipment in late May, he said.

The jail started tracking illegal immigrants identified through the program at the beginning of this month.

“Beforehand, if we had someone who could not produce documents we had to call Atlanta,” Sheriff Chitwood said. “They’d sometimes need us to hold someone for a couple of days, which we couldn’t always do.”

Under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a program is established allowing ICE personnel to train local or state law enforcement officers on procedures to check legal residency status.

The 287(g) program also gives those who are trained access to a national database system, and gives the officers the authority to detain suspects themselves rather than await federal ICE approval.

Across the state line in Bradley County, Tenn., Sheriff Tim Gobble said hasn’t been able to get the 287(g) program for his department.

“We’ve had trouble with regard to finding the legal status of people. It’s been difficult to get information through ICE,” Sheriff Gobble said. “We’re hoping 287(g) would allow access to the database to determine status.”

Bradley County Chief Deputy Bill Dyer said he’s applied for the program three times and sent e-mails to local, regional and national offices to get his department involved in the program.

“I don’t know what the problem is; I’ve done everything but beg,” Chief Deputy Dyer said.

ICE agents could not be reached for comment regarding why Bradley County has not been approved for inclusion in the 287(g) program, which requires specialized training and equipment.

illegal immigrant impact at home

Sheriff Gobble sees illegal immigration as a problem that reaches far beyond his authority, but he believes that with the help of the 287(g) program he could take care of what happens in his jurisdiction.

“Here’s the problem: The federal government is not doing their job of securing our borders, and that’s clear,” Sheriff Gobble said. “By them not doing their job, it’s making it hard on us.”

He said he would pay the fuel costs for his deputies to transport inmates identified through 287(g) to federal detention centers as far away as Atlanta, Nashville or Memphis in order to alleviate potential jail crowding in Bradley County.

“One of the big reasons this would be a help to us with our jail is it would identify these folks as quickly as possible and get them out of our jail,” Chief Deputy Dyer said. “Then they would not be a burden on taxpayers within our county.”

Sheriff Gobble didn’t have numbers available to show how many of the arrests in Bradley County, or those held in the jail, have been determined to be illegal immigrants.

Back at the jail in Whitfield County, Ga., just across the state line from Bradley, Lt. Wesley Lynch said 287(g) is helping residents and taxpayers.

He said the 34 inmates put into the deportation process by 287(g) since Aug. 1 had been arrested an average of 2.7 times in Whitfield County alone over the last five years. Charges include forgery, hit-and-run, failure to appear, driving under the influence, aggravated assault, drug possession and drug trafficking, Lt. Lynch said.

The same 34 inmates had spent a total of 995 days in the jail over the last five years at an estimated cost of $36,815 to the county, he said.

How Tennessee checks

Tennessee law enforcement agencies are not required by state law to check legal resident status when making an arrest. But if they do so and are not a part of 287(g), they must contact the ICE field office in New Orleans, which covers Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee.

“We do have great cooperation from state and local law enforcement personnel and work very hard at maintaining good relationships,” ICE spokesman Temple Black wrote in an e-mail from the New Orleans office. Mr. Black was unavailable for further comment due to storm conditions in New Orleans.

In July, personnel from the New Orleans office said in a news release that the nationwide 287(g) program has received more than $42 million for training and other costs this fiscal year. That is up from about $15 million in 2007.

The ICE statement also said police from the 59 local law enforcement agencies certified for the 287(g) program have in the last two years identified more than 62,000 people with possible immigration violations.

Agencies must prioritize

Only four Georgia police agencies and two Tennessee agencies are 287(g) qualified.

In the Chattanooga area there are three qualified agencies: Tennessee Department of Safety, the Georgia Department of Safety and the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Department.

Walker County, Ga., Sheriff Steve Wilson said he hasn’t applied for the program because there are not that many arrested in the county who need to be checked, and he doubted his department would qualify.

In Walker County, calling the Atlanta office works fine, said Capt. George Deer, who manages the Walker County Jail. In the last year, Capt. Deer said he’s only had to check on a couple dozen arrested.

Col. Mike Walker, head of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, said showing ICE that the department was training investigators and going after felony offenders helped get 287(g), but the process still took two years.

The department applied for the program in October 2006 and was approved in December 2007, Col. Walker said.

Mike Browning, spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Public Safety, said nine of the department’s criminal investigators finished the four-week training on Aug. 15.

“Focus will be on suspected felonies, such as vehicular homicide, drugs, human trafficking, fraudulent drivers licenses/false ID,” wrote Mr. Browning in an e-mail response about whose immigration status is questioned.

“Agents will work in concert and under the authority of an ICE manager. The trained agents from the Criminal Investigation Division will not be patrolling the highways,” Mr. Browning wrote.

The Department of Public Safety has one trained agent to cover District 2, which includes Chattanooga, and will conduct 287(g) screening strictly for the department and not for other agencies, he wrote.

So, though Sheriff Gobble said his department could use the program “every week,” it’s going to have to wait.

But even those with the program must prioritize.

In Whitfield County, Lt. Lynch said his officers had interviewed 94 people as of Tuesday, most of whom were probably not legal residents.

He said the process isn’t as simple as it sounds. Interviews can take six hours or more, he said.

Officers run through many determining factors and must check multiple databases. Often it’s very difficult to even determine someone’s identity, Lt. Lynch said.

There are times when a person will come into the jail with one name on a Social Security card, a different name on a work badge and another name on a driver’s license.

Some jails might process everyone, he said, but Whitfield has only six officers with the 287(g) training, and they are spread across four work shifts. Often just one is available for 287(g) checks, and he or she must also perform routine jail duties.

Those inmates not processed through the system still face the criminal charges that brought them to jail in the first place, but they are released once those charges have been settled payment of fines, trial or sentencing.

“You try to decide how much you can do,” Lt. Lynch said. “There’s no way one person will be able to process five to six people at once.”