In Savannah, ICE rides shotgun with local police to find and arrest immigrants

“I’d be using local police,” Trump told reporters in July 2024 when discussing his plans to create a mass deportation program. “They know everything about the criminals, and you’d certainly start with the heavyset criminals.”

Shortly before 6:30 a.m. on June 11, Chatham County police pulled over a green pickup truck outside Savannah because the license plates for it and the utility trailer it was towing were “obscured,” according to a police report of the traffic stop.

Officer Adam Tilley informed the driver of the infraction and issued a warning — but the driver wasn’t allowed to continue on his way.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

As Tilley spoke with the driver Maximo Morales Sales, an ICE officer approached a second man in the truck, passenger Samuel Maldonado. The federal agent had been riding in the passenger seat of the patrol vehicle, the report says.

“I was informed by ICE Officer [redacted] that he believed Mr. Sales and Mr. Maldonado were in the country illegally,” Tilley wrote in his report.

The report does not say what triggered those suspicions, but notes the ICE agent handcuffed both men and placed them in the rear of the Chatham County patrol car. Tilley then transported the group to an undisclosed location, where ICE took custody of them.

Same day, new incident

In Georgia, a 2024 law has resulted in unauthorized immigrants being systematically flagged to ICE for potential pickup and deportation whenever they are booked into county jails, including over traffic violations. ICE agents riding in local police cars goes beyond the requirements of that bill.

“This is the first time I heard of ICE riding along during routine patrol,” said Gigi Pedraza, executive director of the Atlanta-based Latino Community Fund. “I was really shocked. And it raises some questions like: ‘Has this been happening all along?’”

Betsy Nolen, spokesperson for the Chatham County Police Department, described the June 11 operations as isolated events.

“The Chatham County Police Department does not have a formal partnership with ICE/Homeland Security, nor do we make it a practice to have ICE agents ride as passengers in patrol vehicles,” she said in a statement. “June 11, 2025, was the only time ICE agents have ridden along with Chatham County Police Department patrol units.”

Nolen added that it is “not unusual” for the Chatham County Police Department to help when another law enforcement agency asks for assistance. In this case, she said the Department of Homeland Security had made a request “for law enforcement assistance in the Quacco Road area,” an area of the county with a large Hispanic population.

DHS officials did not return a request for comment from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The second traffic stop that day took place in the same vicinity.

Chatham County patrol officer Kirby Pulliam pulled over a white work van. It turned out to be transporting six immigrants.

The van had failed to come to a complete stop when exiting a trailer park, according to the report. Though redacted, it notes ICE was embedding with local police.

In his report, officer Kirby Pulliam notes the driver “appeared to be extremely nervous” and acknowledged he did not have a driver’s license, instead handing him a Mexican identification card.

While Pulliam arrested the driver, identified as Rodrigo Espitia-Ibarra, the ICE agent on the scene “began speaking to the passengers” in the van, which included a woman in the passenger seat and four others sitting on the floor in the rear.

Pulliam “assisted in removing the passengers safely from the vehicle and detaining each one at the request of [the ICE agent],” the report states. The ICE agent took custody of Espitia-Ibarra, the driver, and transported all six individuals to immigration headquarters for questioning.

ICE refers to the detainment of people who are not the intended targets of an enforcement operation as “collateral arrests.”

The two traffic stops were the only arrests as part of the county police operation with immigration officials on June 11, Nolen said.

‘Collateral arrests’ becoming more common

Arrests of this kind were rare under President Joe Biden, but they have surged in recent months as part of the Trump administration’s pledge to deport anyone who is in the U.S. illegally.

In the case of the work van, the collateral arrests came from enforcement initiated by local police, not ICE.

Days prior to June 11, Quacco Road was the site of an anti-ICE protest.

Rosie Harrison, founder and CEO of the GROW Initiative, said Quacco Road has emerged as a focal point for ICE and police activity, as did other areas that are also home to majority-Hispanic mobile home parks.

The GROW Initiative helps connect Savannah’s local immigrant populations to food assistance, health resources, emergency relief and English classes, among other services. Starting this year, the nonprofit began fielding phone calls from community members affected by ICE arrests.

“This is almost a day-to-day basis. Families are coming to us because now they need access to food, now they need access to diapers, because the family provider has been detained,” Harrison said.

According to Harrison, she had begun to suspect greater cooperation between local police and ICE because of the speed with which people end up in immigration detention.

“Typically, it’s not immediate. But now we’re recognizing that, OK, there’s a traffic stop, and then they’re in ICE detention centers. How are we getting from point A to point B?” she said. “And then also, how are all these traffic stops happening in areas that are commonly frequented or populated by Latinos?

“If this is not racial profiling, it surely looks like it is.”