Thread: ICE Arrests Soar in Georgia Because of Local Law Agencies' Aid, Report Says

ICE Arrests Soar in Georgia Because of Local Law Agencies' Aid, Report Says


Meredith Hobbs, Daily Report August 4, 2014

Photo Courtesy of ICE via Wikimedia Commons

A new ACLU Foundation of Georgia report found that there were more than 10 times as many U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests in Georgia in FY 2013 as in FY 2007—the first year that Georgia law enforcement agencies started participating in immigration enforcement efforts.

There were 1,533 ICE arrests in FY 2007. That skyrocketed to 16,143 ICE arrests in the first nine months (October 2012 through June 2013) of FY 2013, according to the report, which used data obtained from ICE through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

That total includes people who were arrested by local law enforcement and transferred into ICE custody.

The report was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Georgia, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University Law School.

Called "Prejudice, Policing and Public Safety: The Impact of Immigration Hyper-Enforcement in the State of Georgia," it found that 63.6 percent of ICE arrests from FY 2007 to FY 2013 were made with the help of Georgia law enforcement agencies. The report includes interviews with several individuals pulled over by police or sheriff's deputies for a traffic stop who were then arrested for having no driver's license and turned over to ICE.

Four Georgia counties—Cobb, Gwinnett, Hall and Whitfield—and the Department of Public Safety have entered 287(g) agreements with ICE since 2006, which deputize local and state authorities to perform immigration enforcement. In 2009 some Georgia localities began participating in the Secure Communities program, in which jails perform an immigration check on anyone who is booked. In July 2011, HB 87 became Georgia law, allowing state and local law enforcement to check the immigration status of those arrested for any offense.

More than half of all ICE arrests from 2007 to 2013 were from ICE's Criminal Alien Program (CAP) with local and state jails and prisons, in which undocumented immigrants are identified and reported to ICE. The CAP program accounted for 54 percent or 42,538 ICE arrests since 2007.

Another 9.5 percent or 7,487 ICE arrests were from the 287(g) program.

The vast majority of people (83.5 percent) arrested by ICE during the six-year period were from Central America: Mexico (64.2 percent), Guatemala (9.7 percent), Honduras (5.8 percent) and El Salvador (3.8 percent).

The report's authors expressed concern that local law enforcement's participation in immigration enforcement has made some Georgia residents reluctant to call the police for help in crime situations.

"One can feel the chilling effect this has had with confidence in police," said Azadeh Shahshahani, the director of the ACLU of Georgia's National Security/Immigrants' Rights Project, in a statement.

"No one should be afraid to call 911. But that is exactly what has happened since police became involved in filling federal deportation quotas," said Adelina Nicholls, executive director of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, in the statement.

The number of people that Georgia law enforcement handed over to ICE through "immigration detainers" also increased, according to the report. An immigration detainer is an ICE request to a local jail or prison to hold someone for up to 48 hours beyond when he or she is eligible for release, so ICE can decide whether to pick them up for deportation.

ICE issued 17 times more immigration detainers in Georgia in FY 2013 than in FY 2007. The proportion of people of color subject to ICE detainers (reported by the arresting officer as having a dark or medium complexion) increased from 66.7 percent in FY 2007 to 96.4 percent in FY 2013.

Since 2007, ICE arrested 33,091 parents in Georgia, affecting 77,257 children, including 48,135 children who were U.S. citizens, the report found.

More than half (54 percent) of ICE arrests over the six-year period were for people who entered the United States in 2003 or earlier. Many have spouses and children living in the U.S.

"The data shows that the exponential growth of hyper-immigration enforcement has torn apart thousands of Georgia families," said Alina Das, codirector of NYU Law's Immigrant Rights Clinic.

The report's authors urged Georgia sheriffs to cut their ties with ICE.

There are 165 jurisdictions in the U.S.—states, counties and cities—whose sheriffs and police departments have limited or eliminated reporting undocumented people to ICE, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

Counties make up the vast majority of the participating jurisdictions and most are in Washington state, California and Colorado.

One representative policy directive from the Routt County, Colo., sheriff's office, says suspicion that an individual is an undocumented alien "should generally not be the sole basis for contact, detention or arrest," and adds that persons wishing to report immigration violations should be referred to ICE.

"All individuals, regardless of their immigration status, must feel secure that contacting law enforcement will not make them vulnerable to deportation.

Members of this office should not attempt to determine the immigration status of crime victims and witnesses or take enforcement action against them," according to the Routt sheriff's office policy.

http://www.dailyreportonline.com/rec...20140704145913

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There are 165 jurisdictions in the U.S.—states, counties and cities—whose sheriffs and police departments have limited or eliminated reporting undocumented people to ICE, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

There are 3,181 Secure Communities jurisdictions.

See all state's Secure Communities deportation numbers @

http://www.alipac.us/f12/357-175-dep...2014-a-308831/