Jason Azurmendi (left) is joined by Atlanta’s Will Pesante (center) and Kristen Everett (right) as they protest a controversial immigration law outside the state Capitol on Thursday. David Goldman/AP Hide caption
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David Goldman/AP
Jason Azurmendi (left) is joined by Atlanta’s Will Pesante (center) and Kristen Everett (right) as they protest a controversial immigration law outside the state Capitol on Thursday.
David Goldman/AP
In the final hours of its session, the Georgia legislature passed an Arizona-like bill targeting undocumented immigrants. HB 87 would require police to verify the immigration status of “criminal” suspects and require companies to use a federal database called E-Verify to verify the prospective employee’s status.
The bill now goes to the desk of Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, who has campaigned for passage of such a bill, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Deal said he would sign the bill:
Deal said he will review the legislation, House Bill 87, “but at least the general parameters of what we know appear to be consistent with what we would agree with.”
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“It’s difficult to craft legislation that falls within the parameters of what a state can do without overstepping its bounds,” Deal said. “And I commend the General Assembly for trying to put together a product that they feel meets those needs, and from what I’ve seen, I believe it does.”
The bill met with opposition from both Georgia’s major agribusinesses and Latin American activist organizations. Georgian farmers warned that the federal migrant worker program could not provide enough labor for field work, according to the Times.
The National Association of Latino Elected Officials’ Educational Fund said in a statement that HB 87, like SB 1070 in Arizona, would prove costly to the state:
Georgia’s HB 87 is an unconstitutional and costly measure that endangers the public safety of all Georgians, violates their civil rights, and discriminates against Latinos and Georgia’s newcomers.
The bill contains several unconstitutional provisions aimed at replacing federal immigration laws and will likely result in costly litigation for Georgia, as in Arizona. There’s a lesson to be learned.
Reuters reports that a US appeals court on Monday agreed to a lower court and shelved parts of Arizona’s law. Reuters also notes that similar bills are pending through the state legislatures in “Alabama, Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina.” Utah passed and the governor signed into law an Arizona-inspired measure that included provisions like a migrant worker program.
