Image Credit: DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department / Facebook
Tennessee Conservative News Staff –
The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department is adding a new prisoner transport van to its vehicle lineup after being awarded a grant from the Tennessee Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division.
The award totaling $102,395 was offered by Governor Bill Lee and the General Assembly in exchange for cooperation in a partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) through their 287(g) program.
The department has been approved for the purchase of a mid-rise 2026 Ford F-350 transit van, which they are expected to receive within the next three to four months. The county must foot the bill up front but will be reimbursed through the grant. Grant money will also be used for officer training, inmate transportation time, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and other expenses.
While DeKalb County has not entered an agreement in which officers enforce immigration laws during routine patrols, Sheriff Patrick Ray explained that the department does participate in the jail enforcement model.
“One of the phases we are already doing along with every other sheriff’s department in the state is called the Jail Enforcement Model. If an individual is arrested by any agency for a crime here in DeKalb County and is found to be here illegally, they are booked into the jail for whatever crime they have been arrested on. We are required (by law) to notify ICE and the Attorney Generals Conference. ICE will then tell us if they will accept them or not. If they do accept them, there is a timeline that they have to come and pick them up either before or after they are sentenced. We are already doing that as part of the first phase,” said Sheriff Ray.
With the new grant, correctional officers will be trained to serve federal administrative warrants and transport inmates to federal facilities. This will reduce the need to ICE and other federal agencies to travel to DeKalb County.
Commissioner Beth Pafford raised concerns about long-term obligations related to ICE and stated that she would prefer that the money came from something that was not related to immigration.
Ray noted that the department was already required to do all of the immigration-related things that they would be doing with the new van. The van would simply help with transportation issues and cut down on wear and tear of patrol cars.
According to Ray, 11 illegal aliens were removed from DeKalb County in 2025, all after being arrested for charges not related to their legal status.
The County Commission is expected to consider a budget amendment of $102,395 at its next meeting to allow the purchase.
