Hall County Sheriff’s Department

One of the organizations that organize and sponsor these joint trainings is the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE), a joint program of Georgia State University and local law enforcement. GILEE works to foster cooperation between law enforcement agencies in Georgia and Israel, educating Israeli law enforcement on community policing and training Georgia law enforcement on counter-terrorism. Since its establishment, GILEE has run law enforcement executive development and trainings to enhance homeland security, through 450 programs that reached over 33,000 law enforcement and other executives across over 25 states and 25 countries.

The Sheriff’s Department of Hall County, Georgia, is among the departments that have sent delegates to Israel. Steve Cronic served as Sheriff of Hall County between 2001 and 2012. Sheriff Cronic attended a GILEE training in Israel in 2007. Ramone Gilbert served as a Major of Hall County Sheriff’s Department. Major Gilbert attended a GILEE training in Israel in 2010.

Gilbert was a candidate for Sheriff in 2012 and used his Israel experience in an opening statement at a forum sponsored by the Northeast Georgia Tea Party and Conservative Citizens of Jackson County:

In 2010, I graduated from the Georgia-Israel Exchange program. I spent two weeks in Israel as a police officer. I bring 24 years of hands-on experience with the Hall County Sheriffs Office where I retired as a major. – Major Gilbert

Sheriff Cronic was involved in a lawsuit in a prisoner mistreatement case, and another lawsuit in a prisoner abuse case. He is now on the Board of the Georgia Department of Public Safety.

Major Ramone Gilbert praises the 287(g) program created under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1996. The 287(g) program establishes “task forces” through Memorandums of Understanding between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local and state law enforcement officers, deputizing them as immigration agents. The program gives officers the legal authority to stop, interrogate, and arrest anyone they believe to be undocumented immigrants. It also deputizes jail administrators and gives them the legal authority to access immigration databases so they may refer undocumented immigrants to ICE for possible deportation. The 287(g) program enabled more than 175,000 deportations between 2006 and 2013, according to an analysis by the Marshall Project.