Adame Bus Station in Chamblee GA with routes from Atlanta to cities and towns in Mexico.
Posted on 06/17/2007 7:13:43 PM PDT by Politicalmom
ATLANTA — One of the main arguments leveled at a crackdown on illegal immigrants passed by the General Assembly last year was that the state shouldn’t meddle in a federal issue.
Now, with Congress struggling mightily even to get a floor vote on comprehensive reform legislation, supporters of the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act are saying “I told you so” about the state law, which takes effect July 1.
“Georgia’s put together the strictest package yet,” said Jimmy Herchek, a member of Georgians for Immigration Reduction from Gwinnett County. “It’s because of the federal government’s failure to act.”
But opponents continue to insist illegal immigration can only be solved at the federal level. In fact, they say the General Assembly has made the problem worse with a law that tells both undocumented workers and the key industries that rely on them that Georgia is going to be more hostile to illegals than other states.
“It sends a message that says, ‘National companies, don’t come here. We don’t want your business. Immigrants, don’t come here. We’re not a friendly state,’” said Charles Kuck, an Atlanta-based immigration lawyer.
The new law, a top priority of the Republican-controlled legislature last year, will require state and local agencies to verify the immigration status of adults seeking many public benefits and deny those services to those who can’t prove they are either U.S. citizens or in this country legally.
Similar verification requirements will apply to many public agencies and private companies seeking government contracts. Agencies and companies with 500 or more employees must use a federal electronic verification system to screen undocumented workers.
Law redundant
Kuck said there’s more bark to the legislation than bite because its verification requirements are already part of federal law.
“You can’t get public services if you’re an illegal immigrant,” he said. “Since 1986, Congress has required every employer to verify the status of every employee.” But Sen. Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, who sponsored the legislation, said the state law will put teeth into an effort that has been lax at the federal level. “What it does is enforce federal laws that are largely being ignored,” he said. “Anytime we can send a message that we’re going to enforce the law, it’s good for everybody.”
Several state agencies have been developing plans for enforcing the portions of the new law that deal with their duties.
Sam Hall, spokesman for the Georgia Department of Labor, said last week that Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond was still drafting his agency’s strategy and wouldn’t comment on it until it is completed.
On the compliance end, several representatives of businesses that will be affected by the law’s hiring provisions said during a public hearing last month that they were comfortable with it. The state Department of Community Health will play a large part in enforcing the provisions governing public services.
The DCH has some related experience, having been screening Medicaid applicants for immigration status since the beginning of last year.
But the agency has no way of knowing how many applicants have been denied coverage because they couldn’t prove legal residency or citizenship, DCH spokeswoman Dena Brummer said.
The Georgia Department of Human Resources, which monitors the Medicaid rolls, doesn’t differentiate between applicants who are declared ineligible for the program because of their incomes and those who can’t meet the residency or citizenship requirement, she said.
Citizens affected Consumer health advocate Linda Lowe said she suspects many of those who have been knocked off of Georgia’s Medicaid rolls in the last 18 months are in fact eligible for coverage but couldn’t prove it.
“Thousands of citizens lost their Medicaid because they can’t produce in a timely way the documents that are required,” she said. “It’s really inconveniencing U.S. citizens and people born and raised in Georgia.”
But Mark Trail, director of Medicaid for the DCH, said the same verification requirements apply to teachers and public employees enrolled in the State Health Benefit Plan. He said applicants who can’t prove their citizenship are given up to 45 days to produce the documents necessary to make their case.
“I think the assumption that, just because they’re on Medicaid, they’re not smart enough to get the paperwork is degrading,” he said. “I don’t think it’s an unreasonable requirement.”
Lowe said the new immigration law likely will have the same results as the Medicaid eligibility crackdown. She said many people don’t realize that the prohibition on public benefits to undocumented residents not only doesn’t apply to children but also exempts emergency medical care and prenatal care.
“What people are taking away from it is there’s a hostile climate toward them and they’re afraid to go even when they’re eligible for services,” she said.
A much smaller group that will be affected by the new law are high-achieving undocumented students who have been qualifying for in-state tuition rates under a University System of Georgia waiver policy.
The Board of Regents’ lawyers have interpreted a clause in Rogers’ bill requiring the system to comply with federal law to mean the program has to go. A law signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1996 prohibits colleges from offering public benefits to illegal immigrants.
“Why should taxpayers have to subsidize the education of someone who is not eligible to work after they graduate?” Rogers asked.
But former Sen. Sam Zamarripa, an Atlanta Democrat who worked with Rogers on some compromise provisions that went into the bill, said 10 states allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates, despite the presence of the federal law.
Zamarripa said the university system has the power to keep the waiver program if the Board of Regents wanted to.
“The Regents are independent constitutionally and can make their own decisions,” he said. “This is a cruel outcome that ... is going to embarrass them.”
Perception over reality
As with the provisions governing public services, the law’s critics acknowledge that the crackdown on hiring practices won’t change what’s already in federal law. But Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, said the perception of the new law among Latino immigrants, legal and illegal, is going to have grave consequences for Georgia.
He said the scramble to enforce the law is going to lead to abuses, contributing to an atmosphere of hostility that could drive large numbers of Latino workers out of the state.
Gonzalez said industries from farming to poultry production to construction could be hurt severely because they won’t be left with enough workers.
“I don’t think Senator Rogers is going to go to Vidalia to pick onions or get his hands dirty plucking chickens,” he said.
But Herchek, the anti-illegal immigration activist, said such fears are vastly overblown.
“It’s the same argument, if you go back 150 years, for having slavery in the South,” he said. “We got rid of slavery and are better off for it. We’ll be much better off for getting rid of illegal immigration.” Herchek said he would have liked to see the legislature enact an even stronger law.
While the bill contains provisions aimed at discouraging private employers from hiring illegal workers, only those that do business with the government are expressly prohibited from doing so.
Even that restriction is being phased in over three years. Starting next July, the bar will be lowered from public agencies and companies with 500 or more employees to those with 100 or more workers. It won’t apply to all public agencies and companies seeking government contracts until July 2009. “We thought it was proper for the largest companies that have the human resources to do it first and see how they handle it,” Rogers said. Even if Congress continues to dawdle and leaves Georgia to craft immigration policy on its own, there’s no guarantee that the state eventually will extend the hiring crackdown fully to the private sector. But Herchek said he likes what the General Assembly has set in motion.
“It sends a strong signal that this is the direction we’re headed,” he said. “It gives everybody fair warning.”
“He said the scramble to enforce the law is going to lead to abuses, contributing to an atmosphere of hostility that could drive large numbers of Latino workers out of the state.”
My heart bleeds.
Are they too dense to get it? That's the whole point.
You GA folks are so kind to send us all your illegal aliens but huh...
How bouts making ‘em vere to the right into SC?
Lindsey is waiting with a light in the window and the front door to his mansion wide open...
There he is, Mr. Grahamnesty hisself a’yellin’....
......(((Y’ALL COME))).........
I’ll do my best to shoo them Little Lindsey’s way. :)
Good for Georgia. What’s amazing is all the arguments that come out to protect the social welfare empire Dhimmicrats have built. Like proving you’re elgible for Medicaid is a burden? Say yes to corruption and fraud.
>> But opponents continue to insist illegal immigration can only be solved at the federal level.
Nonsense! The BEST way to crack down on illegals is to go after employers with a vengeance. This is best accomplished at the local level.
(Admittedly, a little Federal cooperation would help...)
Thanks for posting this, PM. I had heard generally about Georgia’s legislation, but this gives some details. California had something similar in the 1990s, and it was shot down in the federal courts. I assume the “activists” have already tried to do this to your state’s laws?\
I look forward to seeing how this works out. Good Luck to Peach Staters.
I really don't think anyone with the brains of a mole cares what a bottom feeding attorney thinks are says about anything.
It is state laws like this one in Georgia and the referendums in Arizona that are driving the Federal supporters of Amnesty to act.
The Corporate Business open borders lobby is afraid that state enforcement of immigration laws will work. So they are trying to preempt state enforcement of immigration laws with a general amnesty before these state laws start showing real effects.
We are flat out looking at a special interests versus American people political war in DC over immigration.
“
But opponents continue to insist illegal immigration can only be solved at the federal level. In fact, they say the General Assembly has made the problem worse with a law that tells both undocumented workers and the key industries that rely on them that Georgia is going to be more hostile to illegals than other states. “
THIS IS WHAT THE OPEN BORDERS FOLKS SAID IN TEXAS, AND GOT REASONABLE LAWS REMOVED FROM DEBATE.
DONT FALL FOR IT. There is a lot state and local govt should do.
Interesting argument from anti-illegal immigration advocate.
We need to start confiscating their cars when caught driving w/o licence and insurance.Right now the car is out of impound before the illegal is kicked loose from jail.Family members know just what to do. I have a little plan to call some companies and tell them HEADS UP! ICE is on the way and watch them scatter.Keep ‘em guessing.
I know. I lived in CA all my life up until five years ago. Voted for Prop. 187 and watched the system kill it. It was completely depressing.
I don’t know what the status of any lawsuit is. I haven’t heard of any, but I don’t watch local or state news. I get all my news from FR these days. :)
CALL! CALL! CALL! CALL! AND KEEP CALLING TILL THE LINES FRY!
WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! TILL YOU RUN OUT OF INK IN YOUR PEN!
Bombard the Democrats as well, especially the ones that ran on an anti illegal immigration plank and the ones in marginal districts who could be vulnerable. keep pounding on them. This is a bipartisan issue not a Conservative or Liberal issue BUT AN AMERICAN issue.
That;s the general idea Chuck. You schmuck.
She wasn't entirely exaggerating; in Dalton these days there are two Spanish-language newspapers, one Spanish-language radio station, crowded Spanish-language masses at three town churches, and a thriving Mexican imports aisle at the local Wal-Mart. There's Spanish on the billboards (especially on the town's east side), Spanish in local TV commercials, and, at a recent meeting of Dalton Junior High School parents, a Spanish-language translator was provided for non-English-speakers.
"We have a Mexican bakery, Mexican restaurants, Mexican-owned clothing stores," says Kathryn Sellers, director of public relations for the Dalton-based Carpet and Rug Institute and a long-time Dalton resident. "We have almost a total society that's Hispanic."
The explanation for all this in a town that, until recently, was nearly 90 percent white and 10 percent black—like any mill town with one foot in the Deep South and the other in Appalachia—leads directly to Dalton's lifeblood, the carpet industry. The Dalton area houses six of the largest carpet manufacturers in the world, produces more than 70 percent of the world's carpet, and lays rightful claim to the title "Carpet Capital of the World."
The carpet industry's creation story—beginning with the tufted bedspread a young Dalton woman created in 1900, and evolving into an industry that yields the town a per capita income among the highest in the state—is one Daltonians proudly tell. But it was in danger of ending abruptly about 10 years ago; fewer local people were willing to work in the carpet industry's entry-level jobs, and unless a viable workforce could be found, the carpet mills would have to relocate.
One person's shortage is another's opportunity. As though the word trabajo—job—was whispered along the invisible lifelines that tether this country to its southern neighbor, a few Mexican men showed up. They were promptly given jobs. Then more came—a few with legal residency, most without. They, too, found immediate work in the carpet industry.
Durkan Spinning Mill, on the outskirts of town, operates around the clock to produce nearly 100,000 pounds of nylon yarn each day, yarn that is quickly whisked off to another Durkan mill to be tufted into carpet. Of the mill's workforce of 280, 55 percent are Hispanic.
"I love my Mexicans," says Sonny Buchanan, mill manager. "They go out there and run their jobs. They're loyal. The white people are just the opposite—they bounce around. These Hispanics are helping us out."
Of the mill's workforce of 280, 55 percent are Hispanic.
So as long as you employ less than 500 people, illegals are A-OK. There's always a loophole. Keep on making those carpets and vinyl houses.
Adame Bus Station in Chamblee GA with routes from Atlanta to cities and towns in Mexico.
The States and Counties and Cities ought to chase all the illegals to mexifornia through codes/laws/and fines ....
Just say NO to Illegal Alien Amnesty!! Keep calling!! It’s NOT OVER!!
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep
Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
This is bull. The reason the whites leave these jobs is because once they start filling up with the illegals everything goes down the tubes. The pay is worse, the atmosphere is worse, the conditions are worse. You are not going to have me believe that all of a sudden all of the white people just quit working. My husband works residential construction here in Georgia, he absolutely hates working with all of the Mexicans. They are hacks, they are rude and they are disgusting. You don’t want to know what they do on the sites. And don’t believe the BS that they are working for 6 bucks and hour either. They make a living wage, however the employer does not have to worry about workman’s comp and taxes or getting sued because they are illegal. All that will change once they are legal though. That cheap labor won’t be cheap anymore!!
Unfortunately I already do. No need for porta-potties or toilet paper. A friend (owns his construction company) has been told by customers to NEVER bring a Mexican back onto their site.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.