To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

CHARLOTTE -- Rep. Sue Myrick, R-Charlotte, was joined by current and former Mecklenburg County sheriffs Monday to clear up some of the questions about the 287g immigration program at a news conference Monday.

The program is intended to target illegal immigrants who commit major crimes, but two recent studies showed that in some cases it might be affecting the wrong people.

One of those studies – a report from the Government Accountability Office – showed that many illegal immigrants have been arrested and deported for minor crimes like traffic violations. The office feels that law enforcement agencies haven't been properly trained on the program.

"It tells you that the program is being misused," German De Castro, with the Hispanic Democratic Party, said.

But the sheriff’s office disagrees.

“The 287g removes the criminal element from the immigrant community,” said Mecklenburg County Sheriff Chipp Bailey. “We don’t go out looking for undocumented or illegal immigrants coming into this country – we only come in contact with them if they are arrested."

Thousands of illegal immigrants, all photographed and fingerprinted, are in jail in North Carolina because of the program, and seven holding facilities in the state implement it.

"It works and most of the jurisdictions that have the program that have the 287g program use it just like Sheriff Bailey and Mecklenburg County does, and that's to identify people arrested," former Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph said.

Immigration rights activists feel that the program targets the Latino community and are calling on the Obama administration to revise the program or do away with it altogether. The program's detractors spoke out against it during the press conference.

"287g is a program that needs to be removed, not only from Mecklenburg County, but from the whole United States," Maudia Melendez, an immigration rights advocate, said.

But Myrick said it's a program that has benefited the county.

"If there are problems in 287g, they need to be looked at and changed," she said. "What we're doing here in Mecklenburg County, I think, is a very fair process."