Thread: FL: Deputies gain immigration authority

Deputies gain immigration authority

2 at BCSO will be able to order deportation
July 27, 2008 11:55:00 PM
By S. Brady Calhoun
News Herald Writer

Local deputies now are acting as immigration agents and will be able to deport illegal aliens from Bay County.

Deputy Richard Bagwell and Sgt. John Sumerall, both of the Bay County Sheriff's Office, have graduated from the 287 (g) Program in Charleston, S.C., Sheriff's Office officials said last week. The four-week school was created by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and is named after a section of law under the Immigration and Nationality Act that authorizes the federal government to train local officers to enforce immigration laws.

The Bay County Sheriff's Office has a task force that responds to complaints about illegal aliens at construction sites and other areas. The deputies often find and arrest illegal aliens using someone else's Social Security number.

Bagwell said the new authority will prevent a frequent problem. Until now after locals arrested illegal immigrants, they had to wait for ICE officers to come to town, interview the suspects, and decide on deportation. Often, before the ICE officials arrived, the suspects bonded out of jail and disappeared, Bagwell said.

Instead of deportation, the illegal aliens would move on and use a fake Social Security number somewhere else, officials said. Now, Bagwell and Sumerall can conduct the interviews and order a deportation before an illegal can bond out, Bagwell said.

"You get all these innocent victims," Bagwell said of the illegal immigration problem.

The forged Social Security numbers belong to someone else, usually a juvenile, and when the juvenile goes to work, they find they have problems with the IRS for not paying taxes, Bagwell said. Those taxes are registered with the federal government because someone used their Social Security number, he added.

"The poor kids never had a job before, and now they are starting out in a hole having to straighten out their credit and everything else with the IRS," Bagwell said.

While at the school, the deputies received training in immigration law, multicultural relations and instruction on Homeland Security databases that identify criminals and immigration violators. The Bay County Sheriff's Office is the first sheriff's office in the 14th judicial circuit, which includes Bay and surrounding counties, to send officers to the program.

"The government has told us what we need to do," said Sheriff Frank McKeithen. "We're going to see now if the government is good on their word."


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Good Job, Bay County! Lets hope the US government and the 287g program live up to their "word" and our laws.