MADISON, Wis. -- It was standing room only in a small room in the City County Building on Monday as dozens of people and Dane County officials met to discuss concerns surrounding recent deportations of illegal immigrants detained by authorities.

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Dane County Supervisor Ashok Kumar, who represents the 5th District, called a Public Protection and Judiciary Committee public hearing to talk about the issue at the request of the Immigrant Workers Union, WISC-TV reported.

The questions were raised because since January 2007, an increasing number of illegal immigrants have been deported after being detained by the Dane County Sheriff's Department.

Kumar said that the purpose of the hearing was to learn more about what's happening.

"Is there any discrimination in who is being reported? Who is being asked about immigration status and who is not?" Kumar said. "There have been a lot of reports about this. We just want to clear that up. This is just an open-ended public hearing where people can come, testify to what's happened to them or their family members, or what they know about. And the sheriff can respond."

In front of a packed room, Sheriff Dave Mahoney defended his practice of notifying federal immigration agents of jail inmates who aren't in the country legally.

Dozens of people then took turns either backing or opposing the sheriff's department policy to cooperate with a Homeland Security unit called Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Mahoney told the committee that last year 286 jail inmates were turned over to ICE and that the county wound up putting a hold on 61 of them.

"I don't believe that it's good public policy for any law enforcement agency not to cooperate with another," said Mahoney.

But some believe Mahoney is helping tear down the trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities.

"Nobody can report to jail to do a sentence because they're deathly afraid of being deported," said Anthony Delyea, Wisconsin Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "It doesn't matter if they report for operating after revocation or murder because ICE picks up as many people as they can."

One criminal defense attorney said that undocumented immigrants are now requesting trials and avoiding plea bargains to avoid ultimate deportation. He warns that those requests will back up the courts at a huge taxpayer expense, WISC-TV reported.

Some speaking at the meeting said they believed it was wrong to turn over people for what is a civil violation, not a criminal violation; others said the issue was one of human rights.

Others disagreed and said that if immigrants are in the U.S. illegally, they should be prepared to be arrested and deported.