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Alamance County commissioner Tim Sutton has a clear message for immigrants.

“If they’re here illegally,” he said, “we’ll certainly accommodate their trip home.”

Sutton began immersing himself in the issue more than a decade ago, as the county’s immigrant population exploded and the new arrivals began straining the county’s schools and other services. There is no question, he said, that the county’s tax burden is higher today than it would be otherwise.

Ultimately, he realized the federal government wasn’t going to step in.

“I just thought, are we going to sit back and let this happen?” he said.

Alamance County has now gained a reputation as one of the toughest places in the South for undocumented immigrants.

“The word is out across the state,” Sutton said. “If you’re an illegal alien, you’re going to have a hard time surviving in Alamance County.”

On a practical level, that philosophy is carried out through what is called the 287(g) program. That’s a bureaucratic-sounding name for a program that essentially deputizes local law enforcement officers to serve as immigration agents, which they do by checking the immigration status of anyone who enters the jail.

One of the first counties to apply for the program, Alamance has pursued it aggressively. The county also built its jail with more capacity than needed and leases the extra space to the federal government to house immigrants caught in the illegal immigration net.

Ultimately, a tougher approach will persuade immigrants to leave, Sutton said.

“If they can’t get a job, if they can’t operate a car, they’ll figure, this ain’t going to work,” he said.

In fact, that may be happening already. Some estimates indicate that the undocumented immigrant population has dropped in the last year, due perhaps to a combination of the crackdown and the slumping economy.

Alamance Sheriff Terry Johnson says the program pays off by taking criminals off the streets.

Randy Jones, the department’s public information officer, said many of those arrested on drug trafficking charges are illegal aliens.

Many of the people in the regular jail population were here illegally, and the recidivism rate among them was high, he said.

Crime has dropped in the county since the program began, he said.

But the department isn’t targeting immigrants, Jones said. Everyone who enters the jail is screened, and no one who isn’t arrested is screened.

Still, critics say that department and others arrest suspected illegal immigrants on traffic charges that don’t normally result in arrests in order to check their immigration status.

Jeremy McKinney, a Greensboro attorney who specializes in immigration issues, said the program mostly catches people involved in nothing worse than traffic infractions.

“I want to stop seeing our local law enforcement agencies chasing gardeners and construction workers,” he said.

Sutton said he has thought deeply about his position. It’s not a perfect solution. But it’s the best he has.

“My heart goes out to the inconvenience it will cause in their lives,” he said. “But I didn’t put them in that position. I’ve laid in bed and prayed that what I was doing would not be deemed a sin. But I have to do my job, and I’m doing it.”

Contact Jason Hardin at 373-7021 or at jason.hardin@news-record.com