County jails in metro Atlanta are funneling more immigrants to ICE

Gwinnett is the metro area’s most immigrant-heavy county, with 27% of residents being foreign-born, according to U.S. Census data. Following it is DeKalb County, where nearly 17% of residents are immigrants. There, the county jail received 190 detainer requests from ICE in the second quarter of 2025, up from 32 in the last quarter of 2024.

In Whitfield County, home to the majority-Hispanic town of Dalton, detainers jumped from 30 at the end of 2024 to 90 by the middle of this year.

“It feels to many of us like open season,” said Gigi Pedraza, executive director of the Atlanta-based Latino Community Fund.

In Gwinnett, driving without a license was the most common offense for immigrants booked in the county’s jail so far this year. No other metro Atlanta county released information on the nature of immigrant inmates’ criminal violations.

The surge in ICE detainers is the product of immigration policy changes at both the state and federal level.

In Georgia, a law passed last year requiring sheriffs’ offices to attempt to verify the immigration status of people booked into county jails or municipal detention facilities and flag inmates who may be in the country illegally. Meanwhile, ICE appears more willing to issue detainer requests as it seeks to boost the number of immigrants arrested and deported. Earlier this spring, the Trump administration raised ICE’s daily arrest quota from 1,000 to 3,000.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Tom Homan, the Trump border czar, said picking up immigrants in local jails is ICE’s preferred way of conducting arrests.

“If I had a choice, I’d much rather be in a jail because it’s safer for the neighborhood, safer for the officer, and safer for the public,” he said.

When ICE lodges a detainer, it is submitting a request for jailers to hold immigrants for up to 48 hours past their scheduled release time. ICE detainers are not legally binding, and local law enforcement agencies can choose whether to abide by them.

But in Georgia, the 2024 immigration bill took that discretion away. According to the text of the law, HB 1105, sheriffs’ offices must “comply with, honor, and fulfill” detainer requests from ICE.

The high-profile case of local Spanish-language journalist Mario Guevara illustrates the close collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement post-HB 1105.

Credit: Courtesy of Mario Guevara

Credit: Courtesy of Mario Guevara

Guevara was booked into the DeKalb County Jail on June 14 after being arrested while filming police at an anti-ICE protest. His attorneys successfully petitioned DeKalb County Magistrate Court for a bond, but Guevara was unable to walk free because ICE had lodged a detainer, which DeKalb authorities honored.

Federal agents picked up Guevara shortly thereafter. The journalist has now spent over a month in immigration detention and faces deportation to his home country of El Salvador, even though he has a valid work permit.

While Georgia sheriffs are required to comply with the growing number of detainers coming from ICE, an open question is whether immigration officials are always able to pick up subjects within 48 hours. Under Biden, some sheriffs complained ICE failed to pick up inmates for whom they had issued detainers.

In a 2024 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, an Atlanta-based ICE spokesperson said the agency had limited resources and had to prioritize cases with the highest risk to public safety.

ICE did not respond to a question from the AJC about the agency’s current ability to fulfill its growing detainer requests. Representatives from the Fulton and DeKalb sheriffs’ offices said ICE has been picking up people with detainers; neither the Gwinnett nor Cobb sheriff’s office shared information on the matter.

Mike Mitchell, deputy executive director of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association, said via email that he “hadn’t heard of any issues” when it comes to ICE picking up subjects of detainer requests.

Jerry Gonzalez is the CEO of the GALEO Impact Fund, an organization that works to expand Latino political power in Georgia.

He called the rise in ICE detainers in the state a “disturbing” trend and said close collaboration between local sheriffs and federal immigration agents could make immigrant residents less likely to work with police in reporting crimes or suspicious activity.

“When community policing falls apart, it will make our communities less safe overall,” he said. “Local governments and police agencies will be faced with serious consequences of the erosion of trust. It will take years or even decades of work to overcome the betrayal of trust our communities have with law enforcement.”