The politically charged debate over a proposed jailhouse program to detect illegal immigrants is heating up again.

Commissioner Lorraine Green said Thursday she will propose at Tuesday's commission meeting that the county add funding to the Sheriff's Department for as many as 18 new deputies to staff the federally-administered program, which seeks to screen incoming jail inmates for immigration violations and turn at least some over to federal authorities for deportation.

While the proposal sounds innocuous, Chairman Charles Bannister accused Green of using it to curry political favor in her effort to unseat him in the July Republican primary.

Green called The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday afternoon to announce her intentions while Bannister was out of town on a fact-finding trip to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina to learn about how the sheriff's department implemented the program there.

Bannister said Green's decision to announce her intentions during his absence was evidence of her efforts to politicize the program.

Bannister said he supports the program and hiring new deputies to staff it, if necessary, but not until Sheriff Butch Conway's staff wades into the project and learns more about what it will take to run it here and how much it will cost — a key issue when in a time of economic uncertainty when the county is already drawing on reserves to balance its budget.

"The only reason to do this right now is for political reasons," Bannister said. "The people in Gwinnett County deserve better than that. They deserve to know what the program will accomplish. They deserve to know who it is intended for."

Green dismissed Bannister's arguments. She said she announced her plan Thursday because that's when she asked that it be added to the agenda. She said she chose Tuesday's agenda because that's when a previously tabled resolution proposed by Bannister urging Conway to join the program is scheduled to be debated again.

Green also rejected Bannister's suggestion that the county should slowly ramp up the program.

"Early agencies that joined the program like Mecklenberg went in and found they needed additional personnel," she said. "Why go though the same learning curve that other folks have?"

The issue of illegal immigration and the costs and consequences of it is a major issue in Gwinnett County. According to Conway, his deputies booked nearly 12,000 foreign nationals through the jail last year. He does not know how many were illegal, but county officials say the costs of law enforcement and delivering other services to the illegal immigrant community in the county costs taxpayers millions of dollars.

Conway said that since the debate over the program began early this year, he has formally asked the Department of Homeland Security to join it.

The county is not eligible to join until it meets all of the criteria set by the American Correctional Association. Conway said the county jail does not currently meet those standards because about 400 inmates are sleeping on the floor in the old area of the jail because he lacks deputies to open the remainder of a newly built jail tower.

Conway said hiring for those 30 positions is going well, but said the earliest he could fully staff the new jail tower would be July.

He predicted the program could be active by October if the county approves funding for the new deputies.

Conway said he needs the 18 deputies on top of his current authorized force to be able to screen every inmate who enters the jail.

"If they give me 9 or 10 people and I have to tell my deputies that if people are charged with shoplifting or entering an auto, don't check them, I don't think that's what the people want," Conway said.