GEORGIA IMMIGRATION REVIEW BOARD DISMISSES VIDALIA COMPLAINT

The Georgia Immigration Review Board (created by HB87) - that oversees enforcement of Georgia's immigration laws has dismissed a complaint filed earlier this year by a Michael Dale Smith that the city of Vidalia is harboring illegal workers.
The complaint basically accused the city of giving undocumented immigrants safe harbor by allowing them to work and live in the city limits. City officials denied his allegations.
The Board of course did not have any evidence and subsequently did not find anything actionable. What a whopping waste of time and taxpayers' money.

GEORGIA WANTS THE ALIEN SMUGGLING PROVISIONS BACK IN FORCE

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens has filed a motion with the 11th Circuit federal appeals court in Atlanta hoping to convince the court to approve the alien smuggling provision in HB87, a provision that the court specifically threw out (or issued a permanent injunction against) because it is unconstitutional.
The state wants to make it illegal for anyone to transport or harbor illegal immigrants while committing another crime. This is ridiculous - the state wants to jail anyone who happens to help somebody who is undocumented, like driving someone to the supermarket while speeding.
The states simply don't have jurisdiction to legislate an area of immigration law when the federal government has already entered that area, such as this case, which is exactly what the court decided.
The court very rarely agrees to rehear a case that was already decided before a three-judge panel. We hope the 11th Circuit denies the state's request for rehearing.

25 GEORGIA ORGANIZATION WRITE TO END 287(G) AGREEMENTS

25 Georgia organizations and civic groups sent a Letter to DHS secretary Napolitano urging her to put an end to 287(g) agreements ICE has with local police departments in some Georgia counties.

The letter says that 287(g) agreements have led to racial profiling and due process violations, eroded trust between police and the community, and undermined public safety. 287(g) agreements are most prevalent in communities with fast-growing Latino populations, not high crime rates.  The program then becomes an excuse for racial profiling and a hindrance to public safety. 

A report by the University of North Carolina found that 87 percent of people booked through the 287(g) program were merely charged with misdemeanors, not felonies.  Agencies have even arrested crime victims.

You can read the full letter at:

http://www.acluga.org/files/1213/4763/7948/287g_letter_Georgia_final.pdf

BIGOT FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST 1214 GEORGIA AGENCIES

D.A. King, an anti-immigrant bigot, filed a complaint in July with the Georgia Immigration Enforcement Review Board that accused 1,214 government agencies in the state of failing to provide information to the state Department of Audits and Accounts to allow it to determine whether they’re subject to HB87. Another pathetic outcome of HB87 that wastes our taxpayer's money and limited public resources.
Among the local and county agencies that King cited are in violation (according to him and no one else), which is unsupported by any evidence, are: Cobb Solid Waste Management Authority, Housing Authority of Cobb, Housing Authority of Acworth, and other agencies. The list is long.
The overall list does contains a number of cities in Georgia and many agencies, which in some counties, like  Cobb, are simply boards whose members are volunteers charged with providing recommendations and typically do not staff employees (and thus exempt from the E-verify requirement).
How the useless Immigration Enforcement Review Board will act upon this complaint remains to be seen.

GEORGIA MUST APPROVE DRIVER'S LICENSE FOR DREAMERS

Nathan Deal, the Republican governor of Georgia was hoping to jump on the bandwagon of Arizona's wicked witch of the West Jan Brewer, to deny driver’s licenses to DACA recipients (those who qualified under the Dream Act Deferred Action or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).
The Georgia Attorney General issued an opinion letter to the Governor yesterday saying that under Georgia law, a driver's license must be issued to DACA recipients.
The AG letter states that OCGA 40-5-21.1(a)(5) specifically includes deferred action status as an eligible category "notwithstanding any other provision of this title, an applicant who presents in person valid documentary evidence of ... approved deferred action status ... may be issued a temporary license, permit, or special identification card."
The AG letter concludes that "While I do not agree with the actions of the President in issuing the directive, it has been implemented by the Department of Homeland Security, USCIS, and state law recognizes the approval of deferred action status as a basis for issuing a temporary driver's license or identification card".

This is great news to all DACA applicants in Georgia!

If you think you qualify for DACA or knows someone who does, please contact our office at 770-913-0800 for help.

ALABAMA HB56 PARTIALLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL

The 11th Circuit also issued a ruling in the Alabama HB56 anti-immigration law. The court made a clear ruling that the k-12 schools provision violated the equal protection clause and the U.S. Supreme Court case of Plyler v. Doe so no reporting of undocumented school children or any of their family members.
In addition, the court struck down the provision making contracts unenforceable if the person is knowingly undocumented as an impermissible regulation of immigration.
Similar to the Georgia HB87 ruling, the harboring provision was struck down, finding the federal harboring scheme is a comprehensive field wherein states may not legislate.
The criminal provisions of Section 30 (Ala. Code 31-13-29) were upheld by the Eleventh Circuit, and are now in effect. This provision was amended by the legislature this spring, and so now applies only to: “applying for or renewing a motor vehicle license plate, applying for or renewing a driver's license or non-driver identification card, applying for or renewing a business license, applying for or renewing a commercial license, or applying for or renewing a professional license.” Applying is now a class C felony in Alabama.

HB87 RULING OUT FROM THE 11TH CIRCUIT

The 11th Circuit has issued its ruling in the HB 87 case. The Court has upheld the injunction against Section 7 (Transporting, Harboring and Inducing), which now is a permanent injunction, so it cannot be a crime in Georgia to harbor or transport someone who is here illegally.
The 11th Circuit has not upheld the injunction against Section 8 (Show me your papers provision) similar to the U.S. Supreme Court case. This is not bad news in itself because just like the Supreme Court decision, the 11th Circuit reiterated that if some actual harm is shown in the future (for example, a longer than normal traffic stop to check a person's immigration status), Section 8 would be preempted by federal law.
Judge Charles Wilson wrote: “The illegal-immigration issues that our country faces today are, no doubt, exceptionally important to both the state and federal governments. As a federal court, we do not sit in judgment of the policy decisions of state legislatures, and we are usually reluctant to conclude that states are forbidden from enacting statutes related to activities within their borders. However, when state laws intrude into areas of overwhelming federal interest and erode the discretion implicit in the sovereignty of the country, we must recognize the supremacy of federal law. Here, section 7 of H.B. 87 cannot be reconciled with the federal immigration scheme or the individual provisions of the INA. As a result, we affirm in part the district court’s order preliminarily enjoining enforcement of section 7. We reverse in part the portion of that order enjoining section 8. This case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings.”
So, basically, if all the state statute requires is that state officers’ conduct an immigration inquiry “during the course of an authorized, lawful detention or after a detainee has been released, the provision likely would survive preemption—at least absent some showing that it has other consequences that are adverse to federal law and its objectives.”
So, the challenge to the law can still be done in the future if it is proved problematic in practice.
Read the decision at: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/201113044.pdf