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An Arkansas county jail has become one of America’s busiest hubs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with hundreds of people arrested this year.
More than 450 people have been detained from Jan. 1 through Oct. 15 at the Benton County Jail, according to ICE arrest data from the University of California Berkeley Deportation Data Project reviewed by the Associated Press, a rate of roughly 1.5 arrests per day in a county with just over 300,000 people.
The surge reflects the rapid expansion of cooperation agreements across the country between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.
In Arkansas, the “Defense Against Criminal Illegals Act” took effect in August and increases penalties for illegal immigrants committing “serious felonies involving violence,” among other stipulations.
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The law signed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders also allowed Arkansas sheriffs to engage with ICE and permits law enforcement to apply via ICE’s federal 287(g) program to be authorized to serve immigration warrants on illegal immigrants already in custody for other offenses.
Most of the Benton County arrests were made through its 287(g) agreement, which allows deputies to question people who are booked into the jail about their immigration status, according to AP. The county’s program accounted for over 4% of all nationwide arrests tied to similar local programs.
The program allows deputies to alert ICE of inmates suspected of being in the country illegally, who are then transferred into ICE custody before being moved to a detention center in another county after a couple of days. They are then taken to a detention center in Louisiana to face potential deportation.
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AP reported that half of the individuals arrested by ICE through the program were convicted of crimes, while the others have pending charges.
Recent ICE holds show people charged with forgery, sexual assault, drug trafficking, theft and public intoxication, with many recent cases involving domestic violence allegations and unsafe-driving offenses, AP reported.
AP reported that Benton County has a high immigrant population compared to the rest of the state, and arrests increased sharply this year after the expansion of ICE partnerships and state-level requirements for sheriff cooperation.
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The Department of Homeland Security and ICE announced in September there were more than 1,000 287(g) program agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, a 641% increase from 135 programs.
While the program has led to the detention of violent criminals, critics argue it has also swept up minor offenders and legal residents. AP reported that Cristina Osornio, a legal permanent U.S. resident and mother of six children, was jailed after a traffic stop in Benton County months after her husband was deported to Mexico.
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