If you've read the newspaper lately, you probably saw where the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office has teamed up with senior staff in Governor Mark Sanford's office to confront the challenge of illegal immigration in South Carolina .

On behalf of the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know a little bit more about this cooperative effort aimed at solving a controversial problem.

Like many other states, South Carolina has seen a surge of illegal immigrants within its borders in recent years. In fact, a recent study estimates that there are over 144,000 illegal immigrants currently living in our state – an increase of more than 1,000% from 15 years ago.

Not surprisingly, this influx has created additional sprawl and traffic congestion, higher levels of pollution, school overcrowding, more expensive health care and a lack of affordable housing. Additionally, a whole new set of demands has been placed on our law enforcement infrastructure, which has already taken on an expanded role in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

This past summer, the United States Congress debated a comprehensive immigration reform bill, but in the end no action was taken. Given the magnitude of the challenge we face (combined with the federal government's failure to act), I believe state and local leaders have an obligation to look for existing ways to address the problem.

For that reason, I recently met with longtime Beaufort attorney Tom Davis – who is currently serving in Columbia as Governor Mark Sanford's Chief of Staff – to explore ways Beaufort County could deal with the problem and fill the “leadership vacuum” in Washington . What we found is that counties like ours can take advantage of a program established by Section 287(g) of the Illegal Immigration and Nationality Act.

This program empowers local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law and allows participating localities to question and detain individuals for removal from the country if (in the course of processing them for committing a crime) they are identified as undocumented illegal aliens. Even better from a local budget standpoint, it provides federal money to pay for these local enforcement actions.

We believe the 287(g) program will benefit Beaufort County in three significant ways. First, it will help law enforcement officers determine whether or not any of the individuals they currently have in custody are, in fact, illegal immigrants. By granting our local law enforcement personnel immediate and accurate information from federal databanks, we would be able to quickly identify detained individuals, ascertain their immigration status and take the appropriate action.

Second, the program would enable the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office to communicate directly with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which would expedite the process of deporting these criminal aliens, thereby relieving a heavy burden placed on our already overcrowded prisons. The Federal Bureau of Prisons estimates that fully one-third of current prison populations in the country are comprised of illegal immigrants, which represents not only a huge drain on taxpayer resources but a legitimate public safety concern as well.

Finally, participation in the 287(g) program will result in direct tax relief for Beaufort County residents. South Carolina requested $2.6 million last year from the federal government to reimburse the state for costs associated with incarcerating criminal aliens, but the state only received a fraction of the amount requested. The balance of the money for holding these aliens ultimately fell on the backs of county taxpayers.

The assistance of Governor Sanford's office in this matter has been and will continue to be critical since the budget crunch in Washington has made it more difficult for ICE to qualify individual counties for participation in the 287(g) program. With the Governor's help, however, we stand a decent chance, especially if we coordinate our efforts with other South Carolina counties in our attempt to regionalize the 287(g) program.