Activists in Whitfield County, Georgia, are demanding the sheriff’s office end its partnership with federal immigration enforcement officers, and they’re planning a sit-in on Saturday to protest the program they say destabilizes communities.
Whitfield County Sheriff Scott Chitwood stands by the program, saying Wednesday that it “has been positive in addressing the criminal element which has made our communities a safer place to live.”
The sit-in is scheduled for Saturday in Dalton at 5 p.m. outside the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office. The group is also hosting a food drive earlier in the day.
Dalton has a large immigrant community. Though some immigrants arrived here in the 1970s to work on Carter’s Dam in Chatsworth, the largest influx of Latinos came to the region in the 1980s and ’90s.
Global demand for carpet surged at the time. And Dalton, nicknamed the Carpet Capital of the World, had plenty of work available.