ICE chief: Georgia cities that refuse to cooperate put ‘my officers’ at risk

ATLANTA — The Trump administration’s point person for immigration enforcement pushed back hard this week against a growing number of Georgia communities that are limiting cooperation with his agency amid the federal government’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Those Georgia communities could create risks for themselves and others by releasing unauthorized immigrants from their jails without first notifying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Thomas Homan, ICE’s acting director.

Under those scenarios, Homan said, ICE must search for them on the outside where they can arm themselves and commit more crimes. It is also possible during those situations, Homan said, that ICE could make more arrests while encountering other immigrants living here without legal status.

“It really puts my officers in the community at risk,” said Homan, who visited Atlanta to attend an International Association of Chiefs of Police conference. “My officers now have to knock on a door. It’s a matter of time before we knock on the wrong door and one of my men or women don’t come home at night.”

This month the Clarke County Sheriff’s Office in Athens, Ga., announced it would no longer honor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers unless they are accompanied by a “judicial warrant or an order from a court.”

Such detainers amount to requests to hold people suspected of being in the country illegally for up to 48 hours beyond the time they are scheduled to be released so ICE can pick them up and seek to deport them. Critics say detaining people for extra time under these circumstances can violate their Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure.

Clarke’s decision followed similar moves last year by the Georgia cities of Clarkston and Decatur. In 2014, Fulton County commissioners passed a resolution urging Sheriff Ted Jackson to block ICE from using county facilities for “investigative interviews or other purposes.”