Burning Atlanta

Hundreds of Gwinnett County inmates who are in the country illegally will be fast-tracked for deportation once federal immigration officials begin a 26-day “surge” to screen foreign nationals.

The surge will begin Jan. 12, with federal immigration officials working in 15-person teams from 6 a.m. to midnight at the Gwinnett jail, said Stacey Bourbonnais, spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department.

The Sheriff’s Department currently does not track inmates’ immigration status, but it does count which ones are foreign-born. So far this year, 14,084 foreign nationals have been booked into the jail, and department officials estimate that about 60 percent of them are here illegally.

The Cobb, Whitfield and Hall County Sheriff’s Departments as well as the Georgia State Patrol are already participating in the program, known as 287(g).

Not everyone is in favor of the program. Pastor Carlos Alberto Gutierrez, minister of Mount Sinai Christian Church in Norcross, joined about 50 people earlier this month in demonstrating against the program at the Gwinnett jail.

“It’s not a good idea,” said Gutierrez. “A lot of families will be separated — children from parents. We’re praying every day and every night.” Hypocritical weasels.Funny, they NEVER use the excuse of "splitting up families" when they leave their wife and kids behind to sneak into this country or overstay a visa. They ONLY use it when their asses are getting tossed.

Because of the large number of foreign-born inmates booked into the Gwinnett jail each year, ICE has expressed concern about how many agents would be needed to provide oversight for Gwinnett, according to Bourbonnais.

This year, Cobb County had transferred more than 2,900 inmates to federal agents for deportation as of November. There is one ICE agent assigned to its jail to oversee the work of nine sheriff’s deputies. However, Gwinnett will have 18 deputies and it’s projected to have nearly double the number of deportations, between 4,000 and 6,000.