** I hope this is not a re-post I have been working overtime all week,and have not seen it posted. I wanted everyone to see what we are putting up with in Forsyth County N.C.. *** At least some are making a half-hearted effort. **


Plan draws some critics: Jail program targets illegals
By Blair Goldstein
JOURNAL REPORTER
Sunday, September 23, 2007

Last weekend, almost 20,000 people gathered at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds for Festival de Verano, a celebration of Hispanic culture.
A similar crowd is expected on the streets of downtown Winston-Salem next weekend for Fiesta 2007, another daylong festival highlighting Hispanic food and culture.

Even as the local Hispanic population is growing and gaining visibility, however, local political leaders are targeting a portion of that population. The Republican-led Forsyth County Board of Commissioners and the Forsyth County Republican Party’s Executive Committee are again pressuring Sheriff Bill Schatzman, also a Republican, to start an illegal-immigration program at the county jail.

Schatzman has for months expressed skepticism about the benefits of the program compared with its cost and the strain it would put on his department.

The federal program trains local law-enforcement officials to screen people’s immigration status when they are booked into the jail, eventually turning over those who are in the country illegally to the federal government.

The continued push by local political leaders has some people in the Hispanic community concerned.

“This whole discussion and the way that it’s been talked about at the county level, it’s dehumanizing the Hispanic population,â€