According to a report from the Migration Policy Institute, released on Tuesday, the jail in Gwinnett County has transferred more than double the number of immigrants into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since the beginning of the Trump administration.
The report examined the ways in which the Trump administration has brought changes to immigration enforcement in the US, examining 15 cities and counties across seven states, including the likes of Georgia. The report discovered that there was a 248% increase in the number of immigrants transferred into ICE custody between 20 January and 4 May last year, compared to the same period in 2016, one of the biggest county increases found by the researchers.
Gwinnett County is a participant in the 287(g) program, enabling some duties of immigration enforcement officers to be performed by local law enforcement in county jails. Cobb and Hall are among five other counties in Georgia taking part in the program, together with the Georgia Department of Corrections. The Migration Policy Institute’s US programs director of research, Randy Capps, says that the program results in extra staffing and greater resources to identify potentially deportable immigrants, which results in more deportations from those counties.
The report found that almost four times the previous year’s number of detainer requests was issued by ICE in 2017 in Gwinnett County. The report also found that nationwide immigration arrests were lower than in 2010 and 2011.