Baldwin County Sheriff Hoss Mack recently returned from a visit to the nation’s capitol, where he and dozens of other sheriffs from across the county sat down with federal officials to talk about issues associated with illegal immigration.
“We had face time with representatives from the National Security Council, the President’s Advisory Council and Vice President Pence also attended two of the meetings,” Mack said. “Our talking points to them were that Congress has got to pass a budget by Sept. 30 and part of that budget is a $5 billion appropriation for the continuation of the building of the wall, and that we were supportive of that effort.”
Mack said another topic of discussion was lobbying the federal government to use the E-verify employment system currently used by the state of Alabama and other states for hiring.
“It’s the digital version of the wall, using E-verify, which would identify any illegals or deter illegals from holding jobs that Americans or those that are legal immigrants could also hold,” Mack said. “We also told them we wanted to show our support for Immigration Customs Enforcement and the border patrol. They’re a very essential part of our law enforcement community.”
Mack was asked to be a part of the group as a member of the board of directors for the National Sheriffs Association and sits on that group’s Immigration and Border Security Committee.
Mack said immigration enforcement has improved a lot during the Trump administration’s time in office, but said there was more to be done.
“We’ve got to have more enforcement and we have to have more border control,” Mack said. “In Baldwin County, two years ago, we would house two to three illegal immigrants a day. Now, we’re averaging about 25 to 30 a day. There is better enforcement, but illegal immigrants are still making it through. And when they’re coming to Baldwin County, they’re bringing drugs through our county and this past year we saw our first two arrests in human trafficking that were related to illegal immigrants. We’re starting to see some of that flow as it comes from east from the west.”
