Newly-elected Gwinnett County Sheriff Keybo Taylor severed ties with ICE and its controversial program that deputized local police.

Of Georgia’s 159 counties, only eight were participating with ICE before Sheriff Taylor’s announcement.

Gwinnett County officials first partnered with ICE back in 2009. This partnership derives from an obscure section of a 1996 law that funds and trains local police to act as immigration officers.

According to ICE, section 287(g) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) allows the agency to grant special authority to local and state police forces “to perform limited immigration law enforcement functions.”

Those local and state police officers operating in this capacity can serve warrants and jail individuals as immigration officers. Ultimate authority and processes remain with ICE.

ICE cites that in 2020 state and local authorities participated in the conviction of almost 3,000 immigrants accused of violent crime and trafficking.

The Trump administration has publicized and politicized section 287(g), but it’s nothing new for law enforcement or immigration enforcement. The American Immigration Council notes that the original IIRAIRA bill included section 287(g) in 1996 when President Bill Clinton signed it into law. The program has received ample funding from the Federal Government since its implementation.

Since 2014, the program was Federally funded to the tune of $24 million. That’s after the Obama administration cut the budget from $68 million in 2010 through 2013.

Though controversial, section 287(g) is not without supporters. The National Association of Sheriffs (NSA) remarked in a 2013 position paper that section 287(g) enables sheriffs to “effectively and accurately identify criminal aliens” and expedite their “removal from the United States.” The NSA advocates not only for the program to continue but for expanding its funding beyond the 2013 high-water mark.

Opponents of the provision argue that it enables racialized discrimination practices that disproportionality impact Latino Americans and immigrants. Such criticisms found national focus centered on Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona.

Sheriff Arpaio — self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America” — was mired in inquires and class-action lawsuits since 2008 for racial discrimination against Latinos. Despite numerous injunctions costing his county a total of $140 million, Arpaio continued to utilize section 287(g) as grounds to detain and interrogate those he believed were in the country illegally.

Arpaio was never arrested or processed after his conviction. He awaited sentencing in October of 2017, but President Trump pardoned Arpaio in August of that year.

Sheriff Taylor remarked on ending the program in Gwinnett County. "Just like any other tool in law enforcement, they're put in place to do good, and then sometimes people abuse it and they will use it for something else.”