RHONDA COOK; Staff


For more than a decade, Cobb County has quietly been part of a program that adds another category to the job description of law enforcement officers --- that of immigration agent.

The program is called 287(g), named for a section of the federal immigration law. It provides authority for state and local enforcement to investigate, detain and arrest illegal immigrants on civil and criminal grounds.

Cobb was the first county in Georgia to be certified for 287(g). Here authorities say the program works. But this month the nationwide program, also operating in Hall and Whitfield counties, and soon Gwinnett County, has come under scrutiny and will soon face more supervision at the local level.

A recent Government Accountability Office report questioned its effectiveness. GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, reported that authorities failed to determine how many of the thousands of people deported under the program were the kind of violent felons it was devised to root out.

Under the program, local authorities have access to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's data base, at least one immigration agent is assigned to each agency and usually works out of their jails several days a week, and ICE routinely sends a bus to participating local jails to pick up people to be deported.

ICE has agreements with 67 agencies in 23 states, including Georgia.

Nationwide, more than 90,000 people have been deported, mostly from local jails. In Georgia, authorities with the Department of Public Safety, and Cobb, Hall and Whitfield counties have identified 1,533 illegal immigrants since Oct. 1.

Cobb was one of the federal pilot programs starting in 1994. The county was accepted to the program in November 2006, when training began.

Between July 1, 2007, when Cobb's officers completed training, and the end of last year ICE took 3,180 people into custody who entered the country illegally and were to be deported.

"They know they'll be prosecuted [and deported again]," said Pat Head, Cobb's district attorney. "So if they do come back [to the United States], they don't come back here."

Since the GAO report earlier this month, The Associated Press reported, the federal government has said it will provide greater guidance and control of the program.

To address the GAO's concerns, ICE officials say the new agreements will specify who should be arrested, how the arrests should be made, how data is to be collected, and how ICE will supervise the program.

The GAO found that ICE had not properly supervised its local and state partners nor collected data needed to assess the program.

As a result, some law enforcement agencies focused on people arrested for relatively minor crimes, the GAO said.

A Smyrna police officer arrested Gregorio DeJesus Gomez, of Mexico, after pulling over his green 1995 Volkswagen Jetta last May for a routine traffic stop.

He had no license. He had a small amount of cocaine. And, he was in this country illegally.

"Cobb County has a provision that if you are a foreigner and you are arrested for anything from spitting on the sidewalk to driving without a license, you're gonna go to jail and you're going to be placed with an immigration hold," said Jesus Nerio, Gomez's attorney. "If your family comes and bonds you out, immigration will grab you. In some instances immigration will deport you before your case has been adjudicated, in which case you lose your bond... It's like shooting fish in a barrel."

In Gomez' case it wasn't his first arrest and he'd been deported before, but Nerio argues that it's unfair for his client to be deported before being indicted.

Local authorities maintain 287(g) is an effective tool.

"We've got a huge problem with illegal immigrants in Gwinnett ... and it's eating up a lot of my budget just processing and housing them [in the jail] once they get arrested," said Gwinnett Sheriff Butch Conway.

If they are deported before they are tried for less serious crimes, so be it, Conway said.

It's just "as well we get rid of them as try them [for charges] and spend money on them," he said.

The Associated Press and news researcher Richard Hallman contributed to this story.

Photo: BOB ANDRES / bandres@ajc.com A caravan of Immigration and Customs Enforcement vans picks up illegal immigrants in the Cobb County Jail. A report found ICE had not properly supervised the local program. /ImageData*

March 16, 2009
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