Written by: Kyla Wetmore
Speaker 1: Jess Bonham, District 4
“287(g) agreements were created to extend the reach and amplify the resources of a federal agency that has demonstrated a clear disregard for human life and public safety. …Based on information shared by the sheriff’s office on Facebook, we know that it costs our county $91.95 to house one person per day in our county jail [and] 58 community members were detained on ICE holds in September, another 42 in November, and 42 in December. Based on a very conservative estimate of only two days on an ICE hold for each one of these people…, our county has already spent more than $26,000 on this agreement over just three months. That’s $26,000 to strip people away from their families.”
Speaker 2: Amir Hamid Andalib, District 3 (37415), 39:22
41:41 “I have two questions for the mayor, Mr. Wamp. Will you publicly denounce Donald Trump and your support for him? And my second question: Will you send a letter to Bill Lee telling him that Trump’s version of ICE is broken and it is never welcome in Hamilton County? Tell Bill Lee that ICE needs to be fixed before it comes here and kills innocents in our home.”
Speaker 3: Summer Swaford, District 6, 42:43
“A strong community where we can raise our kids is the community that is going to come together. And when you divide law enforcement and residents and you fade away that trust, crime rates are going to spike; that cooperation is going to dissolve. … Right now, with violent or repeat crimes, you’re targeting the wrong population [Hispanic and Latino populations] statistically and, in doing that, you’re risking diverting already limited resources that could be out there on the streets making our public a more safe community.”
Speaker 4: Daniel Garner, District 3 (37343), 46:08
“We are calling upon you to end the 287(g) contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, an agency who are routinely denying the civil right of legal residents as well as citizens…. If ICE violates the civil rights of a single person, then all of us are at risk, white and black and brown. I don’t care what your color is.”
Speaker 5: Ben Ranken, District 6, 47:30
“The fact that HCSO [Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office] is in voluntary partnership with [ICE] undermines their own credibility and trustworthiness. They said it was about immigration, but they’ve detained U.S. citizens and legal residents. They said immigrants are bad for us, but immigrants paid $4 billion in taxes to Tennessee in 2023. They said they were going after the worst of the worst, but the number of people in ICE custody with no criminal record is higher than those with a criminal record. … I’m asking HCSO to terminate the 287(g) contract and asking you, the commissioners, to threaten to refuse to increase funding for HCSO until Sheriff Garrett does so.”
Speaker 6: Evelina Cotay, District 3 (37406), 49:53
“I strongly condemn Hamilton County’s 287(g) agreement/partnership with immigration enforcement. It’s not ICE doing it primarily here. It’s our [sheriff’s deputies] at the jail and the police transferring it to there. The county has deported over 500 of our neighbors in 2025. This is a crime against humanity, overwhelmingly, for nonviolent crimes. People [who] are hardworking fathers, mothers and brothers, ripped away from their families, sent to countries they fled and may face torture and death in. You may not be directly killing them, but they are going to die [in] their home countries potentially.”
“History will not look kindly upon you if you do nothing. If you ever want to know what you would have done under Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, Salazar, you have a chance to do it right [now]…. There are times when the Lord tests us. I believe this is one of those times for you.”
Speaker 7: Joe Gaston, 37404, District 11, 51:41
“In the last 15 years, I’ve been serving in the defense industry. I was in the 75th Ranger Regiment and Joint Special Operations Command, served as an intelligence analyst. I’ve seen the realities of national security and immigration problems in other nations. And I can tell you that what ICE is representing, what DHS is representing and what Donald Trump is representing is not true. These problems and the way they’re being addressed are not how you do them. They cause more violence. The violence that I saw over multiple deployments to Afghanistan is the kind of stuff that I’m beginning to see in the streets of Minneapolis.”
“You might say that’s dramatic, but it’s the same stuff. If me or any of my men that I served with ever disarmed somebody and then shot them in the back, we would have been arrested immediately on return of that mission.”
Speaker 8: Leah Morris, District 4, 53:48
“There may come a time when our cooperation with the federal government becomes mandatory. But until such time, it is [the commissioners’] civic and moral responsibility to do right by your neighbors. You have been elected to serve this community. And while that may feel hard right now with this agreement, please imagine what it must feel like to be a member of this community and to feel betrayed by the people sworn to be public servants, sworn to protect this community. I urge you to do the right thing while it is still easy to do so.”
Speaker 9: Jessica Alexander, (37403), District 4, 54:45
“287(g) agreements extend the reach of the Trump administration’s hypermilitarized deportation agency by recruiting local law enforcement agencies to do ICE’s work…. There’s also a wealth of documentation that illustrates the specific harms 287(g) agreements introduce into local communities. They increase racial profiling, create a pervasive police state, isolate immigrant communities, lead to civil rights violations, cause family separation and drain taxpayer dollars.”
“I recognize that the Hamilton County Sheriff has chosen to opt into the jail enforcement model, and I can’t help but wonder why we would voluntarily take on more daily operational cost at Silverdale at the expense of Hamilton County kids losing parents, students losing their friends, employers losing their workers, not to mention the trauma these policies inflict on people, which is generational and irreparable.”
Speaker 10: Ilsa Hampton, (37405), District 6 57:12
“I served in the Army as a combat medic in the 82nd Airborne Second Division 1325 Airborne Infantry Unit. I was an instructor at the medical simulation training center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for over a year. It was my job as an NCO to instruct the youth of our army on how to safely conduct operations, deescalate and protect their brothers and sisters, but more importantly, apply medicine to whoever needed it. ICE agents are untrained and incompetent. They do not abide by [the] values and ethos that servants of the government and of the people are required to. They murder without remorse and incite terror and fear through escalating violence. They obstruct medical care to victims, a war crime in any other theater. They act with perceived impunity, and we must end that perception. Please end the 287(g) contract.”
Speaker 11: Eddy Bell, District 1, 58:34
“I am an immigrant. I have lived in this country for 34 years. I am a U.S. citizen, yet I live with anxiety every day. I carry my U.S. passport card and my wallet just in case. Even so, when I see a Hamilton County Sheriff vehicle, my heart races. The fear isn’t because of anything I have done wrong. It is because of how I look and my accent, things I cannot change and should not have to… If this is how I feel as a citizen, I cannot imagine what my fellow immigrants, especially those without legal status, are feeling right now.”
“Please consider the real impact your words, policies and partnerships have on immigrant communities. We deserve to feel safe, not targeted. Seen, not feared.”
Speaker 12: Edith Perez, (37415), 1:01:20- District 3
“I’m a Mexican-American immigrant. A lot of people don’t feel safe coming [to the meeting], so I’m really happy that everybody’s here to represent, and I’m here to represent them… Letting ICE work here is not going to make our county safer. It’s not going to make Chattanooga safer. It’s going to make it worse.”
Speaker 13: Christine DiPietro, District 3, 1:03:30
“I am also against the 287(g) contract. I believe it erodes trust in our community. If you are a victim of domestic abuse, you are less likely to call the authorities. If you live in an immigrant community, if you’re in a car accident, you are less likely to call first responders because of this partnership.”
“I know how many seats are up for reelection in Chattanooga right now. … There is so much potential and passion and smarts in the room, and I would love to see some of the people here engage in the political process that way and to challenge all of you, not necessarily because I want you to lose your seats, but because I do believe that challenge creates really incredible discourse for our community and really makes us think about our ideas and what we’re doing.”
Speaker 14: Judy Fargo, District 3, 1:04:52
“I’ve never protested anything in my life until now. I’m almost 75. But it’s time to speak up. … I never understood how the German people could sit by and watch Hitler come to power and do nothing. And now I get it.”
Speaker 15: Meghan Gilbert, (37412), 1:08:57- district 8
“We as a country consistently invest more in sales and profit than in public education and people. These are distorted priorities, in my opinion. … The budget for 2026, approved by this board, left our schools with a deficit of over $16 million at the same time that we see public resources directed toward ICE operations that have led to fear, family separation and disappearance of our neighbors and murders across the nation. This budget, the one that you put together, is how our commission shows our community what our priorities are.”
