The Hidden Impact of
ICE DEPORTATION

ICE Deportation is on the Rise in Georgia

The Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement program has called for Georgia county sheriff offices, the Georgia Department of Corrections, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department (“ICE”) to partner and enforce the agreement through section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act enacted in 1996. Under this section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, local officials can be deputized to help immigration and customs enforcement agents or deportation officers investigate, apprehend, and detain individuals identified for deportation.

As a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is responsible for enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. ICE investigates, arrests, detains and removes criminal aliens within the U.S. to protect the states from illegal immigration and cross-border crime that threaten national security and public safety. Immigration enforcement is their most significant area of responsibility.

However, Immigration and Nationality Act allows ICE as well as the DHS to cooperate with states and local law enforcement agencies permitting certain officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions. But, they must be appropriately trained and function under the supervision of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Currently, there is an aggressive push for immigration enforcement for national security in the State of Georgia. The Georgia counties of Cobb, Gwinnett, Hall, Lumpkin, Bartow, Floyd, and Whitfield all actively participate in the 287(g) immigration program signed in 2018. In 2017, ICE reportedly deported over 12,571 people from the Atlanta area. These numbers were higher than the previous fiscal year of 5,770 deportations. Once detained, undocumented persons are more likely to be deported and less likely to receive bonds. Posting bond is carried out by ICE or the Atlanta area and the Stewart Detention Center immigration judges.

There are four major Immigration Detention centers in Georgia in four cities:

• Atlanta City Detention Center (Atlanta, Georgia)
• Irwin County Detention Center (Ocilla, Georgia)
• North Georgia Detention Center (Gainesville, Georgia)
• Stewart Detention Center (Lumpkin, Georgia)
• Folkston ICE Processing Center (East Folkston, Georgia)

According to the information shared on the official website, Irwin County Detention Center and Stewart Detention Centers have the highest rate of deportation cases. ICE has an immigration detainment agreement with other counties in Georgia like Gwinnett County, which has made 29,210 charges against undocumented immigrants since participating in the 287(g) program in 2009.

The Fourth Amendment says that undocumented immigrants have Constitutional rights, even when ICE agents are knocking at your door (figuratively). When this occurs, you should know what you’re entitled to under the immigration law. Understand that under the Fifth Amendment of the American Constitution of immigration laws, immigrants can tell law enforcement and ICE agents that they will not speak to them, answer their questions, sign anything, or give them any type of documents. ICE agents or local police should have a warrant signed by a judge in order to enter your home to ensure public safety. Immediately contact an immigration attorney in Atlanta.

However, in order to prepare for a possible ICE arrest, there are some tips to keep yourself and your family prepared. If your background check includes an arrest for a crime or shows any signs of relation with dangerous criminals, you could be placed into detention by ICE employees, which means you will be gone for a while. When this occurs, how will family members, friends, and employers know how to find you? If you are at risk of being detained by immigration and customs enforcement as an undocumented immigrant who entered the country illegally, you should prepare some vital personal information to help your family and friends prepare for your absence:

• Keep family names and their contact information.
• Write down employer contact information. In the absence of an undocumented person, the family can contact the employer for unpaid wages.
• Prepare sensitive information for someone to care for any children in the home. Include the school they go to. Work with the school in preparing a release form for that child or children to be released to your designated contact. If your child is a U.S. citizen, ensure that a spouse is identified as having parental rights.
• Write down your bank account information for easy access by the family. Before ICE arrives, work with your bank to put a family member’s name on your accounts. If you don’t have an account, leave a blank check so that your money can be withdrawn.
• Let the family or friends know how you would like them to handle your personal effects. To make it legal, write up a list and have it notarized.
• If you have an ICE deportation attorney, have their information available to friends and family so they can be notified.

Even as an undocumented immigrant or recent border crossers in the United States, you have the right to take care of everything on this list. Be knowledgeable that the Trump Administration has released executive orders on state-wide enforcement whereby all unauthorized immigrants, no matter where they live, could be deported and undergo removal operations.

What Happens to Relatives Who are Not Deported?

Recent TV news shows Border Patrol agents separating immigrant children from their parents. Other immigrant parents are crying to U.S. magistrate judges to please deport them with their children. With immigration being such a polarizing issue, it’s difficult to assess the realities. In an effort to better understand what it’s like for the families of those who are deported, we spoke with a group of local immigration experts in Georgia. They all have hands-on experience working with families who have been affected by deportation.

Alpa Amin

“One of the unfortunate – and often overlooked – consequences of increased immigration enforcement is the toll it takes on the families left behind. The trauma of being separated from a loved one, coupled with the fear, anxiety, and shame of an uncertain future, can have a severe long-term impact on a person’s emotional well-being.”

Vân Huynh

Supervising Immigration Attorney, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta

Y“Lots of different things happen to families when the state comes in and breaks them apart. Mainly though, people carry on. They live with the trauma associated with deportations and navigate the difficulties that arise. When men are deported, it’s women and their children who carry the burden, many of whom are mothers, grandmothers, sisters, etc. Women continue to raise their children to give them better opportunities, and they are also tasked with supporting their extended families in the United States and abroad. Children grow up living with the immense trauma as a result of seeing their family members taken by immigration and customs enforcement ICE and the immigration court. But I’ve also seen young people, as young as eight years old, rise as activists. They have a better understanding of how legal and political systems work than most people because they experienced firsthand how unjust and hostile these systems are to them and families like theirs. Deportation is a life sentence and affects everyone in the family – a weight they carry throughout their lives.”

Children and parents are very often deported years apart. In many cases, children have been placed in foster care. In other cases, after waiting for an immigration court to make a determination, some children, due to aging, are deported back to their native country.

The State of Georgia has many organizations to support families and undocumented persons facing deportation. For example, El Refugio is a hospitality house that is down the road from the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA. El Refugio helps the family members of detainees with meals, a place to stay, comfort, allowing family members to visit detained male family members.

There are national organizations that have local state chapters that represent immigrants and their families, like the United We Dream Network (UWDN). UWDN supports immigrant youths, DREAMers, and their families.

The medical industry notes that when one family member is deported but others must remain behind, it creates a toxic health environment. When heads of a family (mother and/or father) are removed from the home, what may remain is daily depression, fear, sadness, anxiety, and trauma. The economic stability of the family is affected.

Deportation has been highlighted by the American Psychological Association as causing mental health problems for both citizen-children and their parents, who may be non-residents. “In these “mixed-status families,” citizen-children have all of the experiences of being one unit that shares bloodlines, lineage, affection, and interdependence. What they don’t share is a common legal status, which can be a source of psychological anguish and problems for citizen-children.”

There is a particularly high risk of negative psychological consequences when it’s a mother and child who have been separated. “Migration-related family separation, particularly between mother and child, has negative psychological impacts on both children and parents that persist even after reunification (Gindling & Poggio, 2009).”

When family members are left behind, they initially become stagnant. Kids don’t want to go to school or leave the house, and the family can’t plan for a future because they don’t see one. It literally becomes a take one day at a time existence. “Parents’ legal vulnerability, detention, and deportation are strongly associated with depression, anxiety, fears of separation, social isolation, self-stigma, aggression, withdrawal and negative academic consequences among children (Brabeck & Xu, 2010; Chavez et al., 2012; Delva et al., 2013; Dreby, 2012; Gonzales, Suárez-Orozco & Dedios-Sanguineti, 2013). Allen, Cisneros, and Tellez (2013) showed that citizen-children were significantly more likely to show signs of depression, anxiety, aggression, and conduct problems than children whose parents were not deported or whose parents were in the process of deportation.”

Deportation of family members also extends into the community where churches get involved, mental health centers or clinics become inundated, and businesses often lose productive employees.