Democrat Jon Ossoff: Police Must Not Help Keep Criminal Illegal Aliens Off Georgia Streets

Democrat Jon Ossoff, running against Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), says he is opposed to local law enforcement agencies cooperating closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep criminal illegal aliens from being released into Georgia communities.

During a campaign stop in Marietta, Georgia, on Wednesday, Ossoff said he opposed local law enforcement agencies cooperating with ICE’s 287(g) program that allows local officers to swiftly turn criminal illegal aliens over to ICE agents for arrest and deportation.

“I think that federal immigration law should be the purview of federal authorities and not local law enforcement, and here’s why, here’s why I oppose the 287(g) program,” Ossoff said. “There have to be bonds of trust between local communities and local law enforcement.”

Ossoff continued:

We can’t have a situation where, for example, if there is domestic violence going on in someone’s household, they are afraid to call the local authorities because everyone’s going to get their papers checked when the local [police department] arrives. There has to be trust between local law enforcement and local communities. And so that’s why I don’t believe that it is the role of local law enforcement to be executing those documentation checks when they’re going about their daily duties going about public safety.

Ossoff’s characterization of the 287(g) program, though, differs from how local police cooperate with ICE agents. The 287(g) agreements between law enforcement agencies and ICE identifies criminal illegal aliens, or those with pending criminal charges, after they have been booked in jail.

The Georgia Department of Corrections currently has a 287(g) agreement with ICE so that criminal illegal aliens who are booked into state jails and correctional facilities can be identified by federal immigration officials and not be released back into communities.

More Georgia localities who participate in the 287(g) program include the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office, the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office, the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office, the Hall County Sheriff’s Office, the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, and the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office.

At the campaign stop, Ossoff promised to support amnesty for the majority of the roughly 11 to 22 million illegal aliens who live in the United States, should he be elected to the U.S. Senate. Specifically, Ossoff said he would back a “path to legal status” for all illegal aliens “who otherwise follow the law.”

House and Senate Democrats are already plotting to ram an amnesty through Congress in the new year. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said this month that he and his Democrat colleagues view amnesty for illegal aliens as a major priority on their agenda.

“The big picture is this: We need to pass comprehensive immigration reform, once and for all,” Schumer said. “It is one of my top goals, it is one of my dreams. I’ve always believed that immigration is an area where the Senate can find bipartisan ground … we have broad-based support.”

A win for Ossoff against Perdue, as well as Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s (R-GA) Democrat opponent Raphael Warnock, on January 5 would bring Senate Democrats much closer to that goal.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 

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