By Andria Simmons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Over the past two years, Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren has been referred to as a hero, a racist and a few other things unfit to print.
That’s because his department’s partnership with the Department of Homeland Security, which allows deputies to detain inmates suspected of being in the country illegally, has stirred the passions of immigration reform advocates as well as citizens who want current immigration laws enforced.
Warren’s own attitude toward the program, known as 287(g), is matter-of-fact.
“Other agencies or groups have tried to make some big thing out of it saying that we’re profiling,” Warren said. “No. I just think it’s my job to notify anybody --- be it a federal agency, a local agency or a state agency --- that someone they’re looking for is here.”
The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office became the first local law enforcement agency in Georgia to begin implementing the 287(g) program in July 2007. Whitfield and Hall counties inked similar agreements in 2008 and Gwinnett is soon to follow.
As the Georgia county with the longest track record, Cobb’s program bears further examination. Since July 2007, 6,386 inmates suspected of being illegal immigrants have been detained for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to records provided by the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office.
About of third of those inmates were jailed for traffic offenses such as driving without a license. Drunken driving was the next most common charge. Four murder suspects, 10 alleged rapists and 27 suspected child molesters were also among those detained for federal immigration officials.
Neither Cobb nor ICE officials could say how many of the inmates held for ICE were actually deported. Once they are turned over to immigration officials, inmates suspected of being in the country illegally still have the right to go before an immigration judge.
The Government Office of Accountability issued a report in March about 287(g) after studying 29 law enforcement agencies who are participating. The report said that of the 43,000 undocumented inmates jailed in fiscal year 2008, ICE detained about 34,000. Of those detained, 41 percent began removal proceedings while 44 percent left the country voluntarily.
The remaining 15 percent were either given humanitarian release, sent to a federal or state prison to serve a sentence for a felony conviction, or were released due to the minor nature of their offense and limited detention space.
Change after 9/11
The program called 287(g) was named after a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Few local law enforcement agencies took interest in it until the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, raised concern about the nation’s immigration laws.
Under 287(g), city and state law enforcement officers are trained to take on some of the functions of an immigration officer.
As of July, 66 state and local agencies in the United States had formed local-federal partnerships under 287(g). The number of people deported in ICE’s three-state region based in Atlanta more than tripled between 2006 and 2008, from 5,249 to 18,611.
The increase in removals from the Atlanta region can also be attributed to the opening of a new detention center in South Georgia, said Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. Immigrants from other parts of the country are sent there and their removals are counted with those from the Atlanta region, he said.
A heated debate
Warren says 18 of his deputies have gone through ICE’s four-week training course, where they learn about immigration and criminal law, examining relevant documents, cross-cultural communication, checking immigration status and ICE policies. He’d like to send them all.
D.A. King, president and founder of the Dustin Inman Society, which advocates for the enforcement of immigration laws, sees Cobb’s participation in the 287(g) program as a success.
“Neil Warren was the first sheriff in Georgia to take advantage of 287(g),” King said. “He is a hero to most Americans in Georgia and we are all very, very proud of him.”
He says anyone who was jailed and later deported --- regardless of offense --- deserved it because illegal immigration is a crime.
But critics say the 287(g) program leads to racial profiling. They point to Cobb statistics showing that a third of the illegal immigrants in the jail were arrested for committing traffic violations as proof that the program is being misapplied. They say a program designed to rid the community of hardened criminals has been used to round up friends and neighbors.
“Criminals are fine; nobody wants criminals in their communities,” said the Rev. Tracy Blagec, spokeswoman for Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment. “Arrest the criminals, deport them, do what you need to do. But good people are being picked up, being separated from their families and having their businesses destroyed.”
Atlanta police Chief Richard Pennington worries that Cobb’s participation in 287(g) may harm the inroads his officers are trying to make in the Latino community. Pennington is a member of the Major City Chiefs Association and former president of the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Executives, both of which are against 287(g).
“A lot of law enforcement agencies don’t believe that’s the best way of utilizing your resources,” Pennington said. “I think what happens when you start to ask [questions about immigration status] is the immigrant community becomes very skeptical of law enforcement. At some point, they will not cooperate when there is a crime in their community.”
Pennington says local cops should not be inquiring about a person’s immigration status.
The future of 287(g)
Even as more law enforcement agencies are coming on board with 287(g), a coalition of civil rights groups and Latin-American organizations are calling for an to end the program.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment are co-hosting a series of rallies in counties around Georgia to document personal testimonies about racial profiling. They hope to illustrate the need for anti-racial profiling legislation in Georgia and convince county and federal officials to rescind existing 287(g) agreements.
The ACLU of Georgia has compiled into a report the accounts of 10 people who had experiences of racial profiling in Cobb County, along with interviews of five community activists or attorneys.
The report will be presented to the Department of Homeland Security, which is set to review existing 287(g) partnership agreements after Oct. 15. The ACLU of Georgia will also present the report at an news conference today in Marietta.
Patricia Badillo’s husband was arrested May 4 in Marietta after getting into a car accident with a woman who he claims was distracted by talking on her cellphone. The husband was arrested because he was driving without a license. The woman complained of neck pain only after police arrived, Badillo said.
Badillo isn’t sure which law enforcement agency took her husband into custody. She said he was jailed for three days in Cobb and then transferred to the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin.
He is now out on $5,000 bond awaiting an Oct. 20 immigration hearing.
“We spent the little money we had saved on bail,” Badillo said. “Now we don’t have any money left, and I can’t pay for a lawyer.”
Groups who oppose 287(g) say illegal immigrants are being unfairly targeted for driving without a license, even though state law makes it impossible to obtain one. They say a path to citizenship that would allow undocumented residents to get a driver’s license is a better solution than locking up people who need to drive to work.
Warren and Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway make no apologies for arresting unlicensed drivers. They say driving without a license is a serious offense that should not be shrugged off.
“Somebody who is killed in a traffic accident, they’re just as dead as if they were shot with a pistol,” Conway said. “Those people that haven’t shown a proficiency in driving, I think they are dangerous out on the road. They have not shown an ability to drive.”
Warren said he disagrees that the 287(g) program leads to racial profiling. He pointed out that police officers making the arrests are not the ones checking immigration status. Deputies run the check only after a person arrives at the jail.
The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office has an inmate grievance process. However, they have not received any grievances from inmates or formal complaints from the public about how inmates detained for ICE have been treated. The sheriff has received several verbal complaints about the Marietta and Cobb County police departments but “he has observed nothing to substantiate any of those allegations,” Chief Deputy Sheriff Linda Coker said.
Warren said he generally hears positive comments from the community.
“If I thought any law enforcement officer in Cobb County was profiling, I would do my own investigation,” Warren said. “I’ve made that very clear to these groups and I hope they can believe me on that.”
Cobb arrests
Number of Cobb County inmates identified as illegal immigrants
20071,345 *
20083,427
20091,614 **
* July 1 to Dec. 31, 2007 ** Jan. 1 to July 31, 2009
Top five offenses for which immigration detainees were arrested:
Traffic offenses1,943
DUI572
Felony drug possession217
Theft164
Domestic violence132
Source: Cobb County Sheriff’s Office
Copyright 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution