Georgia’s Latino community prepares for deportation plan

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – President-elect Donald Trump has promised a crackdown at the southern border with a widespread deportation plan.

Gigi Pedereza is the director of the Latino Community Foundation of Georgia. She said right now there is a lot of uncertainty from the Latino community in Georgia. Some people are fearful of the plan, while others doubt it will come to fruition.

“There is a lot of fear from some folks and some other folks think nothing is going to happen You have these competing thoughts,” Pedereza said. “What we know is that he has run on this platform. He’s the president-elect and we are expecting there will be changes in immigration. We don’t know how sweeping, how fast, and how that will be implemented, but at this point, it is very concerning. We have already seen hate crimes, we’ve seen physical attacks, and we know folks have received threatening text messages.”

Most of Georgia’s police departments and sheriff’s offices don’t have the power to enforce federal immigration laws.

According to the Georgia Sheriff’s Association (GSA), only a handful of Georgia law enforcement agencies are a part of the 287(g) Program, which can deputize state officers to act as federal immigration agents.

Law enforcement can detain an illegal immigrant if they commit a crime, but the GSA said that often doesn’t lead to deportation.

Last year, the General Assembly passed the Track Act, which requires county jails to report the immigration status of every inmate.

The GSA said despite the mandatory reporting, the majority of immigrants are released after serving their sentences before they can be taken into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Pedereza said she’s working with churches and schools to make sure people in the immigrant community are aware of their legal rights.

“I’ve been in a couple of meetings where some of the administrators are concerned about already seeing drops in attendance from children because the parents are afraid, because the kids, when they are in high school, they are afraid of going to school, coming back, and not finding their parents,” said Pedereza.

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