Marietta Daily Journal
Editorial
November 19, 2009

Section 287(g)

Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren signed a new agreement last month with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to update the 1996 federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Part of that act, Section 287(g), has become the focus of intense efforts at repeal by those in this country who favor open borders and a blanket amnesty for those who arrived here illegally. That’s because Section 287(g) enhances the ability of local law enforcement agencies here and elsewhere to assist ICE in locating and deporting those who are in this country illegally. If they are arrested for a serious crime and discovered, via 287(g), to be here illegally, they are turned over to ICE and held for deportation.

There are now at least three other counties in Georgia using the program and following the lead of Warren, who was the first to use it.

Warren’s decision to renew the ICE Memorandum of Understanding with the feds prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to release a report the same week that accused him of exercising “unchecked police power” to tear families apart.

“Cobb County residents who appear to be foreign-born have been subjected to rampant racial profiling and are routinely picked up by the police for minor or nonexistent violations,” it reported.

Warren ultimately responded with his own report last week. It slams the ACLU’s document as poorly researched and poorly argued.

“The ACLU report continuously confuses the roles of several law enforcement agencies in Cobb County,” the sheriff wrote. “For example, the ACLU report suggests numerous times that the Cobb County Police Department abuses authority granted under the Memorandum of Agreement. This assertion by the ACLU is a blatant misstatement of the facts because, as the ACLU well knows, the MOA does not grant any authority to the Cobb County Police Department and has no legal impact whatsoever on that agency’s operations. The ACLU either does not understand the relationship between the various law enforcement agencies or is deliberately attempting to mislead readers about how the 287(g) program works in Cobb County.”

The ACLU also claims that Hispanics are arrested in the county on minor traffic violations as a prelude to involving them in the 287(g) program. Warren responded, “The report does not mention the number of non-Latino people who were stopped and arrested or released for similar violations. These unsubstantiated accusations hardly rise to the level of credible proof that Cobb residents who appear to be foreign born have been subjected to rampant racial profiling and are routinely picked up for non-existent reasons.”

“Other than to simply state that the 287(g) program encourages bad acts by law enforcement, the ACLU has offered no data or other information that there is any kind of relationship between the existence of the 287(g) MOA and the acts of which it complains. Indeed, the ACLU report offers nothing other than unsubstantiated anecdotal references concerning racial profiling. Overall, the contents of the ACLU report totally lack any justification to refrain from implementing the provisions of the Section 287(g) program in Cobb County.”

Well put. Surely critics of that program have better things to do that slinging empty claims of racism at those trying to enforce our laws, and trying to stir up groundless fears in the Hispanic community.

HERE