Posted on 07/24/2007 5:18:13 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
A new Georgia law requires local jailers to report to federal officials any illegal immigrants who are booked on DUI or felony charges, but some local law enforcement officers believe the law will have little effect.
"The law requires some reporting, but the law does not say what happens to those individuals that get reported," Dalton, Ga., Police Chief James Chadwick said Monday. "Georgia is a fairly powerful state, but they can't dictate to the federal government what they do with the individuals."
The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act went into effect July 1. One section requires jailers to make "a reasonable effort" to determine whether some offenders booked into the jail are in the United States legally.
Hispanic advocates say there are concerns among immigrants about the law, and some Tennessee officials worry the law could push illegal immigrants north into their state.
According to the Georgia law, if someone is illegal, "the jail shall notify" federal officials.
Whitfield County Sheriff Scott Chitwood said it has been the protocol to report illegal immigrant suspects who are in the Whitfield County Jail to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
The new law simply "mandates" it, and what happens as a result is up to federal officials, Sheriff Chitwood said.
"ICE makes that determination if they want to pursue it," he said. "With the short-staffing that ICE is experiencing, unless it is a very serious violation, I don't know if they will travel up from Atlanta" to pick up illegals.
Local law enforcement officials said there are three ICE agents who cover a 10-county area in North Georgia.
Temple Black, a spokesman for ICE, said the new state law would "have little impact on operations" in the region and will not change the way the federal agency does business.
"Our policy is to focus on the most dangerous criminals and people who hurt the citizenry," Mr. Black said. "The other people who come across, we will work to have them removed. But we focus on serious criminal aliens first."
Mr. Black said other states are considering immigration legislation, too.
In Tennessee, Bradley County Commissioner Jeff Yarber said he is "glad (Georgia) did something" and wants to see if Tennessee lawmakers can follow Georgia's lead.
Mr. Yarber said he is concerned that aggressive enforcement of the new law may encourage illegal immigrants to cross from Whitfield County into Bradley.
"With us being a border county, we might get overran by illegals," he said.
Mr. Yarber said he has no hard figures on how many illegal immigrants are in Bradley County, but he knows the Hispanic population has increased in the past several years.
Brian Smith, a Bradley County commissioner and Cleveland police officer, said more illegal immigrants could stream into the county. He wants his state to take action.
"Either the people in Washington or the state is going to have to take some steps to slow down the immigrants coming in causing a burden," he said. "I want to lobby legislators on the state level and put some burden on property owners that rent (to illegals) and the people who employ them."
Bradley County Sheriff Tim Gobble said his corrections officers access a database when someone suspected of being in the country illegally is brought to the jail to determine if the person ever has been deported. If so, a "hold" is placed on the person, and ICE agents are notified.
"Once the state charges are adjudicated, then ICE would will pick them up," Sheriff Gobble said.
Corrections officers do not attempt to establish if a person is in the country legally, he said.
Tennessee Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland, said legislators considered a number of bills this session dealing with immigration. Sen. Bunch said the bill that passed holds employers liable for hiring illegal aliens.
Sen. Bunch said he would listen to citizens' suggestions on immigration.
"My feeling is that (illegals) are coming anyway, regardless of what laws Georgia passes," he said. "Clearly, there is a flow of folks into the state. It's a legitimate concern."
Part of Georgia's new law requires companies with more than 500 employees to verify the immigration status of newly hired workers.
Dalton's Chief Chadwick said this provision may have further-reaching consequences for people in Tennessee. He also said a person can't register a vehicle unless he can prove citizenship.
"Let's face it, folks are here illegally because they came here for the jobs," Chief Chadwick said. "If they can't get employment or a vehicle, they are going to leave."
E-mail Dick Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com
Jeff Yarber is trying to do something...
PING
This is my county...
“Mr. Yarber said he has no hard figures on how many illegal immigrants are in Bradley County, but he knows the Hispanic population has increased in the past several years”
Population of about 100,000 in Bradley County...
There is now about 6,000 to 7,000 illegal aliens...
Gwinnett County Ga has 400,000 hispanic "immigrants," fraction illegal unknown, but I'd guess over half. Want to trade?
That's the point, isn't it?
As each locality mandates and enforces the law, the illegals will overrun adjacent localities, until they do something about it.
And so on and so on until the illegal alien population has been driven northeast to Baltimore, Philly, NYC, Hartford, and Boston.
Talking about this same thing here in SC. Georgia actually takes the lead on something.....I’d be happy to see that law here.
Your observation is absolutely what should happen. Georgia is solving their illegal alien problem ... now the bordering States will have to solve the ensuing escalation of their illegal alien problems ... right up the the Canadian border and down the meheco border!
Tennessee is directly responsible for the death of Cobb County Georgia Deputy Sheriff Loren Lilly on New Years Eve, 2006. He was killed in an auto crash by illegal aliens, who rented a car using a TN license that was obtained legally. If Tennessee wants to do something, they can stop issuing licenses to illegals who come to GA and kill people.
BTTT
I wonder if I rented a “prison” type truck and showed up at the Georgia jails, could I be arrested for taking them back across the border and dumping them out?
If border guards can be put in prison for running drug dealers back across, I’m not too comfortable driving them back, but it seems to me if the states would hire private contractors to do that, there is money to be made there...
I know, Mexico might not let you in with them, and there are a lot of details there, but hey, I’m just thinking out loud.
http://www.numbersusa.com/actionbuffet
DEAR FRIENDS,
This is our next big defensive battle!
Only a firestorm that you in the NumbersUSA Action Network can create will stop Congress from sneaking through a radical pro-illegal-immigration provision in the "9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007."
Please go to your personalized Action Buffet now. Send any faxes posted there. And then click on the Phone note which will provide you with the phone numbers and the talking points for your calls.
A joint Senate/House negotiating committee is on the verge of agreeing to a bill containing a giant loophole for terrorists in particular, and potential illegal aliens in general. The conferees could wrap things up by the end of today.
The pushers of this loophole are counting on the American people being unaware of what Congress has tried to make an obscure process. But if we don't stop Congress from expanding this loophole, we will see the illegal population grow even larger at a faster pace.
We need you to fax and call your two Senators and your U.S. Representative and shock them that you know about this latest capitulation to the illegal immigration industry.
HOW WE GOT HERE
After the terrorist attacks of 2001, the 9/11 Commission made many recommendations for better protecting our nation's security. Some of them were passed in 2002. The bill before us now is intended to take care of most of the remaining recommendations.
One of the recommendations related to a security loophole known as the Visa Waiver program, which allows travelers from many favored nations to come to the United States without the security screening we require for visitors from all other nations.
The rationale for the program is that these "waivered" countries are friendly, and their citizens generally aren't a high risk for overstaying their visas as illegal aliens.
A problem, of course, is that terrorist networks are well aware of this and recruit citizens of the "waivered" countries who can enter the United States with ease. The famous Shoe Bomber from Great Britain did just that.
The House version (H.R. 1) and the Senate version (S. 4) both slipped in a provision to expand the Visa Waiver loophole, rather than reduce it.
A recent GAO report found significant weaknesses in the existing program.
WHAT CAN WE ACCOMPLISH?
Some of our closest allies among the Members of Congress have urged us to activate the Network to stop this Visa Waiver expansion. They consider this to be one of the gravest threats to our security of any proposed legislation.
Unfortunately, only one conferee, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), has vocally opposed this threat to our security. In order to stop this, we need to create a firestorm of opposition THE MINUTE YOU GET THIS.
Why would the Senate do such a thing? One reason is that the tourist industry feels that tourism increases when visas aren't required. This is understandable from a business point of view, although nothing quells tourism like an actual terrorist attack.
But when the choice is clearly between more business and reasonable security, we should expect Congress to choose our security.
All of you with a Member on the negotiating (Conference) committee have had actions posted from us the last week.
But now we need to enlist all the rest of you to call your Senators and Representatives who are NOT on the Conference Committee. They need to know that there is genuine alarm across the land about this small provision in the 9/11 bill.
Your job is to cause so much noise in their offices that those Members will contact the actual Members of the negotiating committee and express some alarm themselves.
You can read more about this waiver program and the threat by going to your NumbersUSA Action Buffet and clicking on the fax and phone notes. They will provide more details.
This is about more than security. The visa process helps screen out visitors who have a profile that suggests a high likelihood of overstaying a visa and becoming an illegal alien. Since around 40% of all illegal aliens first came as legal visitors, expanding the number of countries that don't have to issue visas certainly will expand the number of people becoming illegal aliens.
http://www.numbersusa.com/actionbuffet
Courtesy comment:
I see where La Raza is complaining that comments about illegal aliens is racists.
Something is dreadfully wrong when the Federal government we have elected to office fails to take care of or respect the wishes of the voter that put them in office.
“I see where La Raza is complaining that comments about illegal
aliens is racists.”
When I moved to West Los Angeles in 1995, I thought the common term
for La Raza “The Klan With A Tan” was an extremist statement.
By the time I left in 2005, I realized it was simply “fair comment”.
Will try to call Davis this afternoon.
ping
they say Cobb County has over 700,000 and only 40,000 are actually legal! That is less than 10% LEGALLY here.
These words may seem extreme but from my lowly opinionated perspective America is in trouble.
America is sick and it’s going to take more than a mealy mouth bunch of can’t we all just get along liberals to save Uncle Sam for an even longer life.
My dad and mom both deceased predicted the current climate would beset America 50 years ago.
The sickness of separatism and extreme fringe groups able to take law into their own hands such as La Raza and be treated as Main Stream is absolutely unnerving.
I fear that the country and world we are leaving to our children and grandchildren will be more of an abomination than bright shining light on the hill.
Just the lowly opinion of a red state wannabe, flame away.
10% legal sounds about right to me. Does anyone know what the legal immigration quota for Mexico into the USA for the last 10 years or so has been? I saw that in 2006 Mexico had 173,750 LEGAL immigrants, but the number changes from year to year and has increased in recent years. Figure 2,000,000 legal immigrants in the last 15 years and probably 20- 25 million Mexicans in the USA, then 10% legal is what you’d expect.
Transporting illegals to the nearest airport can be and has been privatized in my experience....
“Just the lowly opinion of a red state wannabe, flame away.”
No flames from me. I grew up in north-central Oklahoma.
When I got to California, I let my colleagues know that we had
“multi-culturalism” in Oklahoma a century or so before the term was
invented.
Today’s current problems just go with the territory of being a
country that other people want to break into, rather than to escape from.
I don’t know the optimal way out of the current situation...except
to fight back and hold our “civil servants” in Washington, D.C. and
our state capitals accountable when they start to act as though they
are on the payrolls of foreign governments, drug runners and coyotes.
Reply:
Applied diligently, your formula may be the salve necessary to change our government to the better.
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