The Georgia Department of Corrections has applied to take part in a contentious federal immigration enforcement program, which gives local and state officers the responsibility for enforcing federal immigration laws. The program, named 287(g), trains local and state officers to carry out some federal immigration duties in prisons or jails. These include interviewing inmates about their immigration status and beginning the process of deportation.
Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman, Gwendolyn Hogan says that the application was submitted by the agency last month. She said that the Department already works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and was approached by them about the scheme earlier this year, in the belief that it would help to streamline the agency’s processes.
On Monday, Bartow County Sheriff, Clark Millsap, told WABE radio station that his office had also applied to join the program. Four counties in the state of Georgia have already joined the scheme, Cobb, Gwinnett, Hall, and Whitfield, with 60 other agencies or countries also participating across the US. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have trained more than 1800 state and local officers in federal immigration law enforcement.
But, the program has many critics. Immigrant rights activists claim that it has resulted in racial profiling and has increased mistrust of local law enforcement by immigrant communities when it comes to reporting local crimes. 358 immigrants were deported from the US in the 2016 fiscal year via Georgia’s 287(g) program.