How many Horry inmates turned over to ICE custody? Why agency refuses to say

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The Horry County Sheriff’s Office has been working with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement for five years, turning over jail inmates who are determined to not have U.S. citizenship.

However, in that time, it is not known how many inmates have been released to the federal agency.

The sheriff’s department has said that it does not keep track of such numbers and ICE has declined to release the numbers for Horry County, citing privacy concerns.

The use of privacy as a reason to not release the number of inmates is in contrast to information that is already publicized about those who are arrested in Horry County and booked into J. Reuben Long Detention Center.

It also comes at a time when President Donald Trump has stated since taking office that he aims to deport more immigrants than any other administration in the past.

The Sun News requested the number of inmates transferred from Horry County custody to ICE and each of those inmates’ names since Trump’s inauguration day on Jan. 26.

The Sheriff’s Department and the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office deferred the request to ICE, who then declined to release the information due to privacy concerns for its detainees.

“Release of the requested records concerning a third party would result in an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy in violation of the Privacy Act,” ICE said in an email response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Horry County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Brennan Cavanagh said that the sheriff’s office tracks inmate information and their transferring to other agencies using a Jail Management System known as OffenderTrak, but does not release information regarding ICE detainees per the county’s agreement with ICE.

The Sheriff’s Department is one of several law enforcement agencies in South Carolina that has an agreement with ICE which allows the jail to identify a person who should be transferred into the agency’s custody after being arrested.

The denial by ICE to release such information goes against its previous releases of illegal immigrants who have been found to be in the U.S. and arrested, including Horry County.

Between January and May, Horry County had five encounters with immigrants wanted by ICE, according to previous reporting by The State newspaper.

One incident in Horry County involved a Jamaican citizen who was charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated manner in April. The subject had been previously convicted for possessing marijuana, according to release from ICE.

In addition, information on J. Reuben Long Detention Center’s online booking site releases offender’s mugshots, names, ethnicity, sex and ages. This information is not unlike other agencies across the U.S.

Bookings also included the inmate’s home city until about a year ago when the sheriff’s department decided to remove such information, citing privacy concerns after scammers were stealing inmates’ information from the Horry County website.

The claim that ICE is serving the interest of privacy is not unreasonable from a legal standpoint, Jeramie Scott, senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said.

EPIC is a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. founded in 1994 to protect privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic values in the information age, according to its website.

“They can claim exemptions and that sort of holding – that’s not unreasonable per se,” Scott said. “But that doesn’t mean it definitely applies in this situation.”

ICE cited sections of the Freedom of Information Act, which prohibit the disclosure of personnel, medical and other files that could “constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if privacy is not their interest here, but that’s the tolerable claim that they can make,” Scott said.

Director of Communications for the American Civil Liberties Union in South Carolina Paul Bowers said that ICE’s concerns for inmates’ privacy is “disingenuous at best.”

“I would take anything ICE says about privacy concerns with a grain of salt,” Bowers said. “The pattern that we’ve seen is that they seek to operate like secret police. They go to raids with masks on, they don’t show their badges, they don’t show warrants, and then they disappear people. That’s what they do.”

Cavanagh said that if someone calls the sheriff’s office asking if their loved one is still at J. Reuben Long Detention Center, the office will tell them that their loved one has been transferred to ICE custody.

“When inmates are transferred into ICE custody, they are given a paper with specific instructions for tracking and they can relay that information to family members via phone,” Cavanagh said in an email.

Bowers said that ICE still withholds information, such as juvenile’s name or information which can inhibit families from checking on their family members. Policies supposedly aimed at protecting privacy such as that do not serve the public interest, Bowers said.

“When ICE takes people from local jails, families and loved ones are often left wondering what happens. They are often in limbo for days trying to figure out where a person that they love and care for has been taken,” Bowers said. “This is highly unusual, and I don’t buy it for a minute that this is about protecting the privacy of people being held by ICE.”

Nearly 25,000 people from other countries live in Horry County, encompassing 6.63% of the county’s total population, according to 2023 U.S. Census data.

What is Horry County’s agreement with ICE?

Despite citing privacy concerns, during a 2023 meeting between ICE and Horry County Sheriff’s Office representatives regarding their agreement, it was reported that more than 380 immigrants were booked into the detention center for the 2022 fiscal year, according to WMBF News. Of those, 128 were convicted criminals, the station reported.

Such meetings are hosted every few years to give an update on the agreement. It is unclear when another such meeting will occur.

Horry County Sheriff Phillip E. Thompson signed a 287(g) agreement with ICE on June 16, 2020, according to a written agreement on ICE’s website.

The signed 287(g) agreement allows ICE to authorize Horry County deputies to identify and process removable aliens — with criminal or pending criminal charges — who are arrested by state or local law enforcement agencies.

Horry County Sheriff’s Office, which first sought to join the program in 2009, identifies someone who should be removed. The jail officer then sends a report to an ICE supervisor, who determines whether the person needs to be taken to an ICE facility.

ICE has 48 hours to come to the Horry County jail to pick up the person who has been identified for possible removal, according to The State.

At the time, Horry County Sheriff’s Office was one of three law enforcement agencies in South Carolina, including York and Lexington counties to sign the agreement.

Now it’s one of the 20 South Carolina law enforcement agencies that have written agreements with ICE.

The Horry County Sheriff’s Office specifically signed an agreement with ICE that implemented a jail enforcement model.

Horry County can use the jail enforcement model where officers are trained to ask certain questions of people who are detained and report to ICE they have a person in custody with immigration issues.

“Corrections officers in local jails, under the supervision of ICE, are deputized by the federal government to interrogate people in their custody about their immigration status and funnel people into the deportation pipeline,” the ACLU of South Carolina wrote in one of their website’s articles.

What are other law enforcement agencies doing?

Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office does not have a signed 287(g) agreement with ICE.

Its detention center does not qualify as a federal holding facility because it does not meet standards for facilities or personnel, the county’s public information officer Jason Lesley said in an email.

Lesley said it is not the county’s responsibility to track where its ICE-detained inmates go if the federal agency put them in the Georgetown County Detention Center for holding.

“If we place them under arrest, we’re not hiding them from you,” Lesley said. “If ICE arrests them and they ask us to hold them for them, that’d be an ICE problem.”

Lesley said that he was not aware of any ICE “raids” that have occurred in Georgetown County.

“People get arrested plenty of times who are not U.S. citizens,” Lesley said. “I don’t know what the process would be.”

York County Sheriff’s Office also uses ICE’s jail enforcement model since 2020 and had four encounters with immigrants wanted by ICE, according to The State.

Eight law enforcement agencies in South Carolina, including the State Law Enforcement Division, use the task force model from ICE where designated local law enforcement have limited immigration authority, including detaining and questioning people suspected of being in the country illegally, during routine police enforcement.

Eleven law enforcement agencies use the warrant service officer model where immigration warrants and documents are delivered by certified personnel. That model can help ICE save time because a location may be a several hours drive away and serving documents may only take minutes to formally do.

Berkeley, Chester, Pickens and Union county sheriff’s offices have multiple 287(g) agreements that implement the task force model and warrant officer model in each respective agency.

Horry County Chief Deputy Tom Fox said the sheriff’s department didn’t have the resources to carry out the other models beyond the jail enforcement model, according to previous reporting by The State.

The jail enforcement model makes law enforcement’s jobs easier where jail staff are able to interrogate and move an inmate already with a criminal offense to potentially be deported depending on a judge’s ruling, Fox said.

This story was originally published July 7, 2025 at 10:12 AM.