Sheriff Gobble: Illegal Immigration And The BCSO
by Sheriff Tim Gobble
posted December 31, 2008

During the coming year, the BCSO will continue our determined policy of identifying and dealing with all those in our community who break the law, including those who turn out to be here illegally. Every person who is arrested for a crime in Bradley County is checked for citizenship or legal status. If this cannot be verified through our Criminal Alien Program (CAP), they are turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation. The message is, Bradley County is not a sanctuary for anyone attempting to bypass or subvert our immigration laws.

The year 2008 is the first year the BCSO began keeping records of the number of illegals arrested in Bradley County. We will continue to keep track of those numbers in the future, but of those arrested for crime during 2008, the BCSO found 49 of them to be in the country illegally. They have all been turned over to ICE for deportation.

I understand that people of all nationalities seek to live in our great nation, and the BCSO does not single out any nationality for special scrutiny. We are not anti-immigration. On the contrary, I support and encourage legal immigration, with the emphasis on “legal.â€