Ga. Sheriffs Worry about Jail Space if Mass Detainment of Migrants Happen
By Michelle Baruchman
Source The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — As things stand now, about 290 out of 310 beds in the Baldwin County Jail are occupied at any given time, said Sheriff Bill Massee.
In Walton County, Sheriff Joe Chapman’s 376 jail beds are full, so he has to pay other counties to house about 125 excess inmates. And Harris County Sheriff Mike Jolley said he can only hold about 22 more people “before I’m having to put people on the floor.”
There’s just not much more space available inside county jails, nine sheriffs in Georgia told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, especially not if the government wants to use them as federal detention centers to hold potentially thousands of migrants living in the state without permission.
Throughout his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised to launch “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” upon taking office. But that pledge has caused some confusion.
“We’ve heard everything from mass deportations to different enforcement measures, so we don’t know exactly what we’re going to be faced with,” Massee said.
Most Trump allies, sheriffs and organizations supporting Latino migrants expect the president-elect will begin with ordering the deportation of people who are in the country without documentation and have committed felonies.
But that’s supposed to happen anyway. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is notified when migrants are booked into jail for a fingerprintable offense. The agency then makes a decision about whether to place a detainer on defendants in the country without authorization. Under President Joe Biden’s administration, ICE has prioritized violent criminals for detainers, requests from ICE to the law enforcement agency to hold suspects for up to 48 hours while ICE decides what to do with them.
For other migrants, including those who have committed misdemeanor crimes such as shoplifting, law enforcement’s capacity to hold them in custody is limited by space and staffing resources.
“I’m not going to send out a team of deputies out looking for someone for misdemeanors,” said Jud Smith, the sheriff in Barrow County.
Among the sheriffs surveyed in Georgia, all said they did not have the capacity to take more people into their jails if there were workplace or apartment building raids.
“We could round up every illegal immigrant there is, but what are we going to do with them when we do that?” Chapman said. “I’m not going to feed them and clothe them and medicate them for eternity.”
Limited resources and authority
Even before immigration became a top issue, county jails were strapped. Resources are limited, and it’s hard to hire for low-paying and high-stress jailer jobs, sheriffs said.
Earlier this year, sheriffs were tasked with additional responsibilities from state House Bill 1105, which requires them to produce a report about the immigration status of inmates in their facilities. The new law also prevents them from enacting “sanctuary” policies, mandates them to notify ICE about suspects and requires departments to apply for the 287(g) program, which gives local authorities the power to investigate, detain and transport people facing deportation.
For some, the new law is extra work to do what many sheriffs said they were already doing. Lawmakers, however, were targeting a few metro Atlanta sheriffs who had suggested they wouldn’t work with federal immigration authorities.
In 2020, newly elected Democratic sheriffs in Cobb and Gwinnett counties said they would stop their jails from participating in the 287(g) program. Keybo Taylor, Gwinnett’s sheriff, called the program discriminatory. In his reelection pitch, he said on his website that the termination of 287(g) had allowed the county to reallocate resources and create gang and human-trafficking units to combat organized crime.
A spokesperson for the Gwinnett Sheriffs’ office said the department is in compliance with HB 1105, but declined to comment on other questions. The Cobb Sheriff’s office said Sheriff Craig Owens was unavailable for comment.
The sheriffs for Fulton and DeKalb counties did not respond to requests from the AJC.
What sheriffs can’t do is act as federal agents. They don’t have the authority or the resources, said Terry Norris, the executive director of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association.
“The federal government can’t make me hold their prisoners,” Putnam Sheriff Howard Sills said. “The government can say I’ve got to hold them till they can come get them, but they can’t make us, by law, become a federal detention center.”
Already full
Part of the reason jails are so full is because “there’s a lot of people in jail that probably shouldn’t be in jail,” said Chapman, the Walton County sheriff.
“They didn’t pay their fine, they had a dirty drug screen, they didn’t report to their officer or something like that. That’s what the majority of my inmates are,” he said. “A father that hadn’t paid child support in six months — and I understand there’s got to be punishment — but what are we doing, throwing them in jail?”
The sheriffs also blame crowding on lags in the mental health crisis system, slow court proceedings as a holdover from the pandemic, and former Gov. Nathan Deal’s criminal justice program.
Supporters said Deal’s reforms have saved taxpayers money and reduced the number of African Americans in prison. But some sheriffs have criticized his programs.
“We put them on probation, and when they violate their probation, guess where they serve out the time? In the county jail,” Chapman said.
Other sheriffs said immigration violations aren’t a huge issue in their community anyway.
“We don’t have an outcry for immigration,” said Smith, the Barrow sheriff. “We don’t have people beating down our doors to go out and try to find someone who may or may not be here illegally.”
Adelina Nicholls, the executive director of Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, said she is concerned that mass detainment and deportation will see an increase in racial profiling and discrimination.
“A climate where everybody feels entitled to ask you for your immigration status or the police always looking for Latinos around,” she said. “We have seen that, and we are concerned.”
Smith said he’s focused on keeping his community safe but believes every person, whether or not they are a citizen, has human rights. As the head of his department, he said he has to prioritize.
“I say to my staff, ‘Let’s step back and look at this. Is this person a danger or a threat to society? Have they committed one of the seven deadly sins?” he said. “I don’t answer to the president, and I’m not being disrespectful, but I answer to the local citizens of Barrow County who put me in the position that I am today.”
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