Immigration program rejects Georgia requests

ATLANTA --- Several Georgia communities have been rejected from participation in a federal program aimed at helping local authorities remove illegal immigrants who are dangerous from their communities.

Critics say the program could encourage racial profiling.

The Forsyth County Sheriff's Office confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the agency was among those rejected. The taxpayer-funded program allows local officials to investigate the immigration status of people arrested and jailed for other crimes.

Cherokee County Sheriff Roger Garrison told the newspaper that he applied for the money in 2008 and had not yet received an answer. A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the request is still under consideration.

Some Atlanta-area sheriffs and police chiefs have been eager to sign on because the program would give them federal enforcement powers they don't have now. Those powers include the authority to detain, process and transport illegal immigrants for deportation.

Law enforcement officials believe the program could reduce the number of criminal and noncriminal illegal immigrants in their communities.

Garrison said that this year Cherokee County deputies have arrested 647 noncitizens, some of whom might be in the country illegally.

Critics have complained that the program could lead to racial profiling and discourage immigrants from reporting crimes to police. The National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil rights organization based in Washington, released a report Friday calling on the Obama administration to scrap the program.

Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment, a coalition of churches and community organizations, has also come out against the program.

"It is being used as a roundup, a legal way to round up people who are not wanted in those particular counties," said the Rev. Tracy Blagec, the group's spokeswoman.

Many cities and counties want into the program. A spokeswoman for ICE said her agency can't accept everyone into the $68 million program, in part because of limited funding.

The immigration agency covers the costs of supervising the program, training officers and buying equipment. ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said the city of Roswell's applications is also still under consideration.

Roswell has applied three times since 2006. The first application was rejected, and it never got a decision for its request in 2008 to start the program in its jail, Police Chief Ed Williams said. The third request was sent in May.

Nationwide, the federal government has received 207 applications from cities, counties and state agencies wishing to join the program since it started in 2002, according to ICE statistics.

Some communities are not eager to apply.

DeKalb County Sheriff Thomas Brown said he is concerned he doesn't have the staff needed to participate. He said his department has 80 openings for detention officers. He said he would have to send 15 to 20 deputies for weeks of outside training.

"That would just cripple me right now," Brown said.

The Fulton County Sheriff's Office does not plan to apply, saying illegal immigrants make up less than 2 percent of the inmate population.

However, Roswell Mayor Jere Wood said his department needs the program.

About one-third of the inmates in Roswell's 55-bed jail last year were foreign-born and could not provide a Social Security number, city police said.