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The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
The Knox County Jail continues to see an increase in the number of illegal immigrant detainees who are being housed in the facility.
While some of those illegal aliens are arrested locally, others are transferred through the jail to be released to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The Knox County Sheriff’s Office is one of two counties in the state that currently participates in the “287 G” program.
The program allows specially trained officers to question individuals who are arrested about their immigration status.
The Greene County Sheriff’s Office is the other facility working with the program.
Data shows the number of people arrested locally who were later released to ICE to be in the single digits until August of last year, with those numbers jumping into the teens in October, November, and December.
The jail is also used as a holding facility for illegal aliens who were arrested elsewhere and are now awaiting transfer to ICE.
In the early part of 2024, there were fewer than 50 ICE detainees being held; data shows 139 as of this January. According to court records, there are currently 30 suspects with ICE holds and 17 immigration detainees.
Knox County Sheriff Tom Spangler says that his department is looking to increase safety in the area, but they are not actively searching for illegal aliens.
“The men and women of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office are not ‘seeking out’ individuals who may be here illegally. However, if an undocumented individual commits a ‘crime’ and goes to jail, ICE will then investigate his/her immigration status. There has been a recent ‘increase’ in our ICE hold numbers- KCSO’s Corrections Division has a contract to house inmates for ICE just as we do for the US Marshals. The recent increase in numbers is due to housing ICE inmates who are being transported from one location to another,” Spangler said in a statement.
