Lack of money and manpower might hamper federal efforts to deal with illegal immigrants, but Anderson-area sheriff’s offices are finding that they can get things done with what they have on hand.

“Really, all it takes is a computer and a fax machine,” said Capt. Phil Sargent, jail administrator for the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office.

Sargent has been on the front line of putting into action Pickens County Sheriff David Stone’s get-tough attitude toward dealing with illegal immigrants who fall into the hands of law enforcement agencies after being apprehended for other offenses.

Pickens County started tracking illegal immigrants in August 2007, and since then the Pickens jail has processed 105 of them. Eight more illegal immigrants were detected among new inmates just over Labor Day weekend, Sargent said.

“We handle about 4,200 inmates a year,” Sargent said. “So our total is really a significant percentage, more significant than it may look on paper.”

Forty-two illegal immigrants have been transferred to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement from Pickens County for deportation.

The process is simple, Sargent said. The Pickens County Detention Center uses a checklist in processing the inmates. Information faxed to ICE and fingerprints and other identifying information is checked against National Crime Information Center records. A subject who is shown to have no identification, such as a Social Security number, usually is in the country illegally, officials said.

Since June, under South Carolina state law detention centers have been required to determine the immigration status of inmates.

Officials in Anderson and Oconee counties also use the same basic process as Pickens.

“We use the same checklist as Pickens County,” said Captain Garry Bryant, jail administrator for the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office. Bryant came to the job with the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office from a position with the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office.

Anderson County detention officers processed seven illegal immigrant inmates in August, and one already has been picked up by ICE officials for deportation, according to Lt. Arlette Jones of the Anderson County Detention Center.

In the couple of months prior to that, Jones said, “Two or three others were picked up as well.”

Oconee County is holding only five confirmed illegal immigrants and one suspected illegal immigrant in custody.

“We contact ICE like everybody else and see if they want a ‘hold’ placed on them,” Pruitt said.

Most of the illegal immigrant inmates are serving sentences or awaiting trials for serious crimes, including one for murder, Pruitt said.

“ICE isn’t interested in those until they’re through the criminal justice process,” Pruitt said. “But they know they’re here when and if they want them.”

Detention officials in both Anderson and Oconee counties say the basic process pioneered by Pickens County simplifies the handling of illegal immigrants who pass through the system.

The process cuts through a lot of red tape, Sargent said, and is an aid to ICE in that much of the preliminary work for the federal agency is done.

Officials of ICE, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, have raised questions in recent weeks about the levels of funding the agency has to deal with controlling illegal immigration. In particular, ICE officials have said Congress has stinted the agency on funding the 287(g) program, which is designed to train non-federal law enforcement officers in how to identify illegal immigrants and to aid in basic immigration enforcement.

Sheriff P.J. Tanner of Beaufort County, S.C., whose jail facilities are housing more than 170 illegal immigrant inmates, recently said four of his officers would undergo training under the 287(g) program. Getting them into the training, the sheriff said, involved a two-year process.

Currently the only operation 287(g) program in the state is the York County Sheriff’s Office. And ICE officials have said it will be the last.

“The other sheriffs in the state, many of them want the program, but they can't get it because the federal government has not properly funded it,” York County Sheriff Bruce Bryant said recently.

Sheriff Bryant’s department has processed more than 150 illegal immigrants.

The total ICE budget for the program this fiscal year is roughly $26.2 million, an agency spokesman said.

No increase is planned for the coming year, a move that recently brought forth criticism from ICE’s executive director, Jim Pendergraph.

A lack of funding, Pendergraph said, was putting the whole enforcement process at risk.

Pendergraph, a former sheriff of Mecklenburg County (Charlotte), N.C., said the 287(g) program had proven its value to him in his former job.

“We found an individual who had been ... removed from the country 22 times, and he was caught in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a traffic violation,” Pendergraph said.

Sargent in Pickens County said that while ICE can and does do its best with the resources it has, it’s up to local authorities to fill in the gaps. The process he helped pioneer can do the job at practically no cost, he said.

And he’s willing to take it on the road.

“We’ll teach any other department to do what we do,” Sargent said. “We’d love to. All they have to do is call us.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.