Skip to main content

Georgia Is Now "All In" for the Immigration Game

This afternoon the Georgia Senate caved into the blitz put on by Senator Chip Rogers to craft a "compromise" anti-immigration bill in the Georgia Legislature with Rep. Matt Ramsey, passing HB 87 compromise language by a slim 3 votes in a lengthy process on the legislature's final day in session this spring. The HB 87 compromise language will be quickly agreed to by the House (where key leaders had already been consulted on the compromise language).

HB 87 now goes to Governor Deal for signature. Should Governor Deal sign HB 87, it will be the worst piece of immigration legislation in the United States, in some respects worse than Arizona's SB 1070. The good news is that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently found four key provisions of SB 1070 unconstitutional, and those provisions have corresponding sections in HB 87. HB 87 also has several other provisions which themselves separately violate the Constitution, and which will be struck down by the federal courts.

It is simply too bad that the desire to pass "something" to send a message on illegal immigration to someone (it is unclear who the legislature thinks will get this message) overcame common sense and a clear understanding of the harm HB 87 will do to Georgia's reputation, industry, agriculture and spirit. Literally, the Legislature had gone "all in" on this game of bluff poker. Now it is time to show the cards on how HB 87, an Arizona law on steriods, will damage the state before it even has time to become effective.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

If You Are An Immigrant (even a US Citizen), Here Are 9 Things You Should Know

Are you a Naturalized U.S. Citizen, Lawful Permanent Resident, Visa Holder, or an Undocumented Immigrant? We recommend you take the following steps to protect yourself in our current version of America. The last couple of weeks have reminded immigrants, even naturalized U.S. citizens, that they were not born in the United States. Our office has received countless phone calls, emails, and social media messages from people worrying about what their family’s future in the United States holds. Most people want to know what they can do now to protect themselves from what promises to be a wave of anti-immigration activity by the federal government. Trump's Executive Order on Interior Enforcement has some provisions that should make most Americans shiver.  We recommend the following actions for each of the following groups: Naturalized U.S. citizens. In particular if you have a foreign accent, and you are traveling within 100 miles of any US Border (including the oceans

Seven Reasons Why the Georgia Legislature Should Repeal HB-87

Recently the Alabama Attorney General called on the Alabama State Legislature to repeal parts of Alabama's horrid anti-immigration law ( HB 56), because of the "unintended" consequences of the bill (frankly, what happened was not unintended). Because of the similarity between the two laws, Georgia's Speaker of the House, David Ralston was asked whether Georgia Legislature would repeal part or all of HB 87, Georgia own anti-immigration law. HB 87 has caused almost a half a billion dollars in damage to the Georgia economy (along with untold suffering in Georgia's immigrant communities) without any noted or reported positive effect. Speaker Ralston plainly stated that the Georgia Legislature would NOT do anything to repeal HB 87 . While it understandable why a politician would not admit that a pet bill he shepherded and pushed through the state legislature was simply bad law, it is also clear that Speaker Ralston is facing a challenge on his RIGHT in th

How To Stop Illegal Immigration

In the midst of the never ending political season, we hear much rhetoric about immigration, and what candidates will "do" to fix what everyone considers to be a broken (not failed, just broken) immigration system.  Most of the candidates, however, put a condition on fixing this broken system by saying that:  "FIRST, we must secure the border and end illegal immigration, then we will talk."   What will it take to accomplish this precondition to solve a the acknowledged problem. There are two types of "illegal" immigration to the United States.  The first is what everyone already considers to be illegal immigration--those who enter the United States without a visa through our thousands of miles of borders.  Proposals to fix this particular type of illegal immigration range from alligators and moats, to automatic firing machine guns, to “beautiful” walls, to limitless numbers of border patrol agents.  The second type of "illegal" immigratio