Two of the Trump administration’s main policies – concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion funding and the role of county sheriff’s offices in immigration enforcement – are playing out in Oconee County,
The County Council is weighing whether to end DEI funding and partner the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in an effort to identify undocumented immigrants being held in custody at the county Detention Center.
If Oconee County does create a partnership between OCSO and ICE, it would join York, Lexington, and Horry counties in doing so.
Other counties in the state could soon follow suit. On Tuesday, state Attorney General Alan Wilson sent a letter to all 46 South Carolina county sheriffs, urging them to enter into a partnership with ICE.
“This is an utmost priority,” Wilson wrote. “We are called to faithfully uphold the laws and Constitution of this state and the United States.”
The letter follows a request by the White House for local governments to partner with federal immigration officials.
At a passionate meeting in Walhalla Tuesday night, residents from around the county spoke in a steady 90-minute stream about what the proposals would mean for Oconee County. Some echoed the language Wilson used in his letter; others spoke of how divisive and frightening entering into such a partnership would be, particularly among Oconee’s Hispanic residents.
Oconee County, by the numbers, for context
According to the 2023 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, Oconee County had a population of 81,221. That puts the county, populationwise, close to the middle in the state.
Oconee is also home to the state’s 13th-highest countywide concentration of Hispanic residents – about 6%, which just shy of the county’s African-American population, 7%. The county is also 51% female.
In 2024, 81.4% of Oconee County voters selected Donald Trump for president, according to SC Votes, which resident David Knicks argued Tuesday night put the county squarely in line with Trump’s policies.
Knicks said Oconee County voters overwhelmingly, “support your efforts to align county policies with Trump's federal policies targeting removal of DEI from governmental programs."
The five-member County Council is all male, all white and all Republican.
DEI funding
The county’s proposed DEI ordinance, which had its first hearing of three Tuesday, would end all spending on DEI initiatives in the county and mandate that all hiring for county jobs be “merit-based” only.
Residents such as J.R. Slack, a former educator and counselor, and who is African-American, supported ending DEI funding.
“All people need is an equal opportunity,” Slack said. “You cannot fund something that gives preference to someone based not on their ability, but merely on their identity.”
Resident Elizabeth O’Connor, who is Caucasian and a former air traffic controller, said, “There’s a big difference between equal opportunity … and equity. Equal opportunity means you have the chance to apply. Equity means equal outcome. We cannot afford that.”
But opponents of ending DEI funding in the county, such as Vicki Allen of Seneca, said DEI initiatives promote creativity and strengthen organizations. She implored the council to fund DEI initiatives as a measure of greater public service.
Other opponents, such as Jodi Gaulin, also of Seneca, said talk of DEI initiatives as harmful is misguided.
“DEI is the very opposite of a divisive ideology,” Gaulin said. “DEI ensures fairness, encourages collaboration, helps protect individual liberties, and produces more efficient, effective organizational outcomes.”
She added that the council should be focused on public safety and infrastructure development, rather than the “politics of distraction.”
Council Chairman Matthew Durham is critical of DEI initiatives. He said the United States has robust equal opportunity laws, and that he supports those, but he does not support demographically focused programs.
“DEI moves beyond protecting people from discrimination,” Durham said, “and instead seeks to engineer specific demographic outcomes.”
The second reading of the DEI ordinance is slated for Feb. 18; the third for March 4.
Immigration
Discussion over the proposal to partner the OCSO with ICE took up most of Tuesday’s public comment session.
Although many people spoke on the matter, members of Oconee County’s Hispanic community made the most emotional pleas for the council to reconsider what it is on the table.
“Children returning from school to an empty house due to the deportation of their parents is not an agenda Oconee County should follow,” said one Hispanic woman who did not state her name. “The father you despise because of his status is the same one working on your farms to feed your family.”
Brenda Rodriguez, a longtime resident of Walhalla, whose parents were once undocumented immigrants from Mexico, said that while she believes in law and order, she supports undocumented immigrants who are searching for a better life.
“It is inhumane for my children, for myself, to be targeted just because of my skin color,” she said. “My parents left their country because they were starving. So, put yourself in [their] position – if you’re children were starving, what would you do? Would you sit there and starve, or would you risk your life … for your children to be fed?”
While several other county residents expressed worries that the OCSO-ICE arrangement is only going to foster fear and mistrust of police and government officials, Councilman Thomas James emphasized that the partnership does not authorize deputies to go into people’s homes to check immigrant status. Rather, he said, it enables trained county law enforcement officers to check immigrant status of those who are already in custody at the Oconee County Detention Center.
“I support the sheriff’s department,” James said. “This is not a program where [deputies] are going to go out and form a posse and go knocking on doors and looking for people.”
Members of the public retorted that they were concerned deputies might craft reasons to arrest Hispanic residents, to have an excuse to look into their immigration status.
Councilman John Elliott expressed concern that the messaging behind Section 287-G of the Immigration and Nationality Act – the segment that provides for ICE partnerships with local law enforcement agencies – is suffering from misconception and misinformation.
“It sounds like we’ve got an education problem here,” Elliott said. “It seems like we’ve not done a good job describing what this is to the public.”
Numerous members of the public vocally agreed. Elliott said he supports a broad media campaign to explain the realities of what 287-G allows and what a partnership between OCSO and ICE would look like.
When asked for comment on Wednesday, Sheriff Mike Crenshaw said he had “not been briefed yet” on the partnership.
A second hearing on the proposed ordinance is expected later this month.
