The Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department will continue a program that allows deputies to use U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement databases to check the legal status of anyone in their custody.
The department has partnered with ICE since 2009. County commissioners decided last week to extend the program for another three years.
“It’s my responsibility to assist the federal government in identifying illegal aliens committing crimes in Gwinnett County,” said Sheriff Butch Conway in a written statement.
According to ICE statistics, 2,032 undocumented people were picked up by officers in Gwinnett in the past year, but only 10 percent were detained for further questioning from immigration officials. Because ICE prioritizes "felons, not families," the other 90 percent were released with prosecutorial discretion. Nonetheless, Georgia has the second-highest deportation rate in the country.
“From our perspective, it’s a manpower and resource tool,” an ICE spokesperson said of the program, which has also been implemented in Cobb, Hall and Whitfield counties.
Residents of Gwinnett don’t necessarily see it that way. Antonio Molina, the Latino caucus chair for the Democratic Party of Georgia, fears the program lends itself to racial profiling.
“How do you go through a jail and see who can be here legally and not legally?” Molina said. “You can say you don’t racial profile, but there’s no other way to do it.”
Even worse, he said, is that this issue went to the county commissioners with no opportunity for public debate.
“The fact is that this passed in Gwinnett County – the most diverse county in the state, the fastest-growing minority population in the state,” Molina said “The fact that they did this without even reaching out to the public to see how they felt about this is very disheartening.”
Census data shows that Latinos make up 20 percent of Gwinnett's population. African Americans and Asians make up 27 percent and almost 12 percent, respectively.
Chairman Charlotte Nash said the vote was more of a symbolic gesture, since Sheriff Conway has the authority to renew the program without the commission’s blessings.
“The fact that none of them are willing to stand up, even commissioners that represent extremely diverse communities, lets me know they don’t really understand the communities they’ve been elected to represent. That’s a problem,” said Molina.
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