Alabama municipalities can sign up to take over some ICE duties
We're learning that more Alabama counties are signing up to support ICE agents with detainments. One of those is Etowah County, which is helping house detainees in its jail.
Some people aren鈥檛 happy about the collaboration, which is part of a federal program called 287G. It's not new, but it has expanded recently to give more federal powers to the local jurisdictions to carry out many of the duties typically reserved for federal agents.
Right now, several Alabama counties have applied to be a part of 287G. The agreement with Etowah County was just signed on Monday.
There are three tiers a local municipality can take part in. In Etowah County they're following the jail enforcement model, which according to the ICE website, gives the county the authority to identify and process illegal immigrants with criminal or pending criminal charges who are arrested in Alabama. But the task force model, for those jurisdictions who sign that agreement, gives officers the power to enforce limited immigration authority with ICE oversight during their routine police duties.
That's the part that has some organizations concerned.
Allison Hamilton is with the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice. She said, 鈥淚t really motivates local law enforcement to start actively profiling potential undocumented people, those people that are already in their custody. And, you know, if they have the task force model that anyone out in the community is at risk.鈥�
Again, at this point Etowah County does not have the task force model. You can see if your local municipality is a part of 287G or has applied to take part