Posted on 07/15/2007 5:06:33 PM PDT by Turbopilot
Jose Genao sells used cars for a living, but lately he's had to turn away customers from his Smyrna dealership.
Genao used to sell about 15 vehicles a week, mostly Ford F-150 or Silverado pickups to a Mexican clientele. Now he sells only two or three.
Half a dozen customers have returned cars because they can't register them.
"They bring the key and tell me, 'Jose, I'm leaving,' " Genao said.
Genao is feeling the fallout from a new state law, effective July 1, that requires a valid Georgia driver's license or ID card to register a car in Georgia.
The law is cutting deep into traffic for many auto dealers and tag and title services catering to the state's growing immigrant community. Illegal immigrants can't get driver's licenses because to do so, they must prove they're in the country legally.
The law also has the potential to cut into sales taxes and county ad valorem tax revenues, though metro area counties say it's too early to measure that effect.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) said he did not target immigrants.
"Yes, this will impact people who are here illegally, but my biggest focus is public safety," he said.
"If [car dealers and tag services] have built their business on people who are here illegally, I'm sorry, but at some point they had to realize that was not going to continue," Rogers said.
The license plate law closes a window that gave motorists 30 days to get Georgia driver's licenses after moving to the state. In the interim, a driver could register a car with an out-of-state or international license.
Also effective July 1 was a separate, 2006 law requiring increased verification of legal status in Georgia for a variety of other purposes, including to work in some jobs or qualify for welfare.
While no one knows how many illegal immigrants are in Georgia, a government estimate put the number around 470,000. Nationally, most illegal immigrants are from Mexico, followed by El Salvador, Guatemala, India and China, according to a 2005 Department of Homeland Security report.
Genao, 34, has a green card and has lived in the United States eight years. If business doesn't pick up, he might return to his native Dominican Republic to tend to a car dealership there.
"If they don't do something, a lot of businesses are going to close," he said.
Tony Brooks, an insurance agent who caters to the Hispanic community in Marietta, said business for his tag and title service has dropped off about 80 percent since the law went into effect.
"It's definitely slowing things down, that's for sure," Brooks said.
He's had to turn away 30 to 40 people wanting tags in the last two weeks because they don't have Georgia driver's licenses.
His main business is auto insurance, which hasn't suffered, but he's worried immigrant customers won't buy insurance either if they can't register their cars.
Cobb County's tag offices have seen a "significant decrease" in the volume of applications submitted by tag and title services in the last two weeks, said Stewart Manley, manager of Cobb County's tag offices.
The county has also turned away about 40 people per day, Manley said, out of an average 1,900 customers served daily. Some are people who have moved from other states and don't have Georgia driver's licenses yet, Manley said. "They're complaining mildly," he said.
Tax collectors in Cobb, Gwinnett and DeKalb said it is too early to tell how the new license plate law would affect tax collection.
"You really won't see the effect economically for six months," said Brent Bennett, director of vehicle registrations for DeKalb County.
Loopholes exist even with the new law.
An illegal immigrant can still mail in a tag renewal or go online and avoid the need to show a driver's license.
That's what Raul Hernandez plans to do. He is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who came here legally but overstayed his visa and so has a Georgia driver's license. He doesn't have to worry about the tag problem, but his friends do.
"People have asked me to get tags for them in my name. Right now I said 'No, it's not worth the risk. If they get tickets, they'll be sent to me,' " he said in Spanish.
"Right now people are scared, but it will settle down and go back to normal," Hernandez predicted.
Isaias Zavala, 33, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who works construction, said he has no license but his wife does, so he registers their car through her. Still, he worries because he has to drive to work.
"This all seems very bad to me," he said in Spanish of the new law.
Perimeter Insurance Agency used to process 25 tags per week in one Cobb County location. Since July 1, they've done only three renewals, said Jose Mendez, part owner of the business.
His co-owner, Rick Craddock, said he appreciates his immigrant customers.
"We love these people," Craddock said.
But he acknowledges there is a problem with illegal immigration. "We have to secure the border and slow the influx," he said. "The solution is not to kick out all the people who are already here."
GO GEORGIA!!!!!
Good. Go all the way back to mexico you parasite.
now, if every State had laws like this maybe we would not need the Feds to pass any laws!
I wonder how much the premiums for the “uninsured motorist” portion of automobile policies has risen for the rest of us?
Sounds like these Georgia laws are making a real impact...
A useful legislative blueprint for other states...
That’s funny, the headline and story makes it sound like this is bad news, maybe I just don’t understand.
” Go all the way back to mexico you parasite.”
AGREED!
Won’t anybody think of the used car salesmen?
How f-ing unfortunate. Such a sweet picture really, to see the LAW HAVING A POSITIVE EFFECT IN THIS COUNTRY....
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Isaias Zavala, 33, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who works construction,
GET THEM THE HELL OUT OF HERE!
LEGAL immigrants don't have this problem.
Ever read a sob story about gun shop owners who can't sell assault rifles to convicted felons?
I am not a union man but this is definitely Mexicans doing jobs that Americans can and would do if compensated with a living wage.
Perhaps we are on the way to this.....at least one state is getting it right.......
The law is cutting deep into traffic for many auto dealers and tag and title services catering to the state's growing dwindling illegal immigrant community. Illegal immigrants can't get driver's licenses because to do so, they must prove they're in the country legally.
Tip of the hat to the great state of Georgia, thank you!
I'll be asking my state elected officials to do the same.
I hope the exit line of illegals grows!
“Sounds like these Georgia laws are making a real impact...”
Yes, and another article in the Augusta Chronicle was about farmers having to struggle and face crops rotting in their fields because Mexican workers are choosing to leave like y’all want.
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