ICE Agency transports illegal immigrants from Coffee County

By Carole Brand
Published: March 07, 2010

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Suspected illegal aliens who end up in the Coffee County Jail are now being taken by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) to Montgomery for further evaluation and deportation back to home countries.
According to Coffee County Sheriff Dave Sutton, ICE received permission to hire more personnel and has since incorporated a program to quickly move illegals out of the country.
“This is an exceptional thing,” Sutton said. “Now, we can move illegals to the proper agency and reduce the taxpayer dollars in this county.”
Sutton said the program involves any undocumented alien regardless of offense or conviction and any legal alien who has been convicted or a crime of violence; crimes involving moral turpitude, which includes murder, rape, theft, perjury, counterfeiting, blackmail, fraud, forgery, larceny, sodomy, bigamy, embezzlement, manslaughter, dealing in stolen goods, statutory rape, mail fraud, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and assault with intend to rob; a controlled substance related offense; prostitution or related activities or possession of a firearm.
Sutton said ICE agents transport arrested individuals who are suspected illegals to Montgomery because “they have the facilities to process them there. The suspected illegals may have been arrested somewhere else in the country or convicted of a crime somewhere and that’s when ICE has the authority to deport them if needed.”
Coffee County Jail Administrator Richard Moss the county jail has had four transfers to ICE in the last two days.
“Immigration officials have stepped up the transportation of illegals due to additional personnel they have,” Moss said. “We have ways to know that people who come into the county jail are illegals.”
Moss said many do not have social security numbers, proper identification or a legal residence.
“Many have suspected falsified identification on them when they come into the jail,” he said. “If we suspect they are an illegal alien, we contact ICE and they transport them to Montgomery to verify and deport them from this country.”