6/14 – WABE(Audio) – County Sheriff says new immigration law may cost local taxpayers (2011-06-14)

WABE: County Sheriff says new immigration law may cost local taxpayers (2011-06-14).

County Sheriff says new immigration law may cost local taxpayers

Shomial Ahmad (2011-06-14)

Listen Now:

ATLANTA, GA (WABE) – Parts of Georgia’s new illegal immigration law should go into effect beginning in July. One county sheriff in the state worries that the new law will cost his county’s taxpayers more money.

Gregory Coursey is the sheriff of Burke County, which includes part of Augusta. Coursey plans to enforce the state’s new immigration law, but he’s worried that it may be an unfunded mandate. Right now, if the sheriff’s office identifies someone as an illegal immigrant, Coursey says, federal authorities will either pick up the offender within 48 hours or authorize a release. If the state’s new immigration law goes into effect, Coursey says, that will change.

“We’ll be required to hold them indefinitely on the speeding charge or whatever the charge may be, which could place a heavier burden on the local taxpayer.”

Coursey says he doesn’t see ICE immediately picking up one minor traffic offender. The feds may wait until more illegal immigrants are identified, and the county will have to pick up the tab.

“By the state’s own figures that we go by, they estimate it costs at least 50 a day to keep a prisoner.”

Coursey says that he’s not getting any additional state or federal money to enforce the new illegal immigration law. The governor’s office did not comment by deadline.

6/14 – WABE(Audio) – Offenders To Help Fill Farm Work Shortage (2011-06-14)

WABE: Offenders To Help Fill Farm Work Shortage (2011-06-14).

Charles Edwards (2011-06-14)

Listen Now: WABE: Offenders To Help Fill Farm Work Shortage (2011-06-14).

ATLANTA, GA (WABE) – 11,000 people are needed on farms across Georgia to fill the work shortage exacerbated by the state’s new illegal immigration law. That’s according to findings from the Georgia Department of Agriculture released today. Governor Deal says a partial solution is to fill those jobs with people on probation.

There are 100,000 people in Georgia with something in common. They’re on probation. When you’re on probation, you have to find a job in order to stay out of jail.

“One of our responsibilities is to try to guide and direct offenders to potential employment possibilities throughout the state when they come available,” said Georgia Department of Corrections probation director Stan Cooper.

A lot of available farm jobs, according to state leaders, are in Southwest Georgia where agriculture is king and the unemployment rate is more than 10%. Cooper says 8,000 of Georgia’s offenders on probation could potentially fit the bill. He says a pilot program will offer those workers to farmers desperate for help.

“We’re indentifying a small amount of growers right now in South Georgia that need immediate assistance in those areas,” said Cooper. “What we’re doing is giving offenders opportunities, if you will, for employment in those areas.”
While Cooper calls the plan a win-win, there are questions.

“The concern is whether the court can legally require someone on probation to do a specific kind of work,” said Atlanta criminal defense attorney and WABE legal analyst Page Pate.

Judges decide what offenders must do while on probation. Pate wonders if the program would give judges and probation officers too much power over unemployed offenders.

“Right now, if there’s a condition of your probation that requires you to maintain employment, it really means is that you’re out there looking for work if you don’t have work,” said Pate. “In this situation, the probation officer could tell offenders if they don’t find work, you’re going out to work on the farm.”

Cooper rejects the notion admits farm work is hard but also says farmers and offenders will make the final decision.

“It’s a great opportunity for offenders and has nothing to do with forced labor,” said Cooper.

For starters, Cooper says three growers have expressed interest. He also says the state is working with the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Association to make that number grow.

6/14 – ajc.com – State survey suggests farm labor shortage in Georgia, 11,080 farming jobs open | ajc.com

State survey suggests farm labor shortage in Georgia, 11,080 farming jobs open  | ajc.com.

By Jeremy Redmon

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The results of a state survey released Tuesday suggest what Georgia farmers have been saying for weeks: there is a labor shortage in the state’s $69 billion agricultural industry.

Vino Wong, vwong@ajc.com State survey suggests that there is potentially a need to fill as many as 11,080 agricultural jobs this year in Georgia.

Related

• Insider: Gov. Deal’s solution to shortage
• PolitiFact Ga.: Some farm workers paid well
• Suit challenges immigration law
• Deal seeks probe of farm labor shortage
• Governor signs immigration bill

More Georgia politics stories »

• State survey suggests farm labor shortage

• PolitiFact Georgia »

  Gary Black: Workers who pick produce in Georgia’s fields can make $12 to $18 an hour.

Georgia farmers who responded to the survey said they potentially need to fill as many as 11,080 jobs this year, some for one day and others for as long 12 months.

The state Agriculture Department’s survey, however, does not indicate what may be causing the shortage.

Gov. Nathan Deal asked for the survey last month after Georgia farmers complained the state’s tough new immigration enforcement law is scaring away the migrant Hispanic workers they depend on, potentially putting hundreds of millions of dollars in crops at risk.

“Responses suggest a degree of unmet labor needs this season,” Agricultural Commissioner Gary Black said in a letter he sent Deal about the survey results Friday.

Deal issued a statement Tuesday morning saying state officials are seeking to connect unemployed state probationers with farming jobs in Southwest Georgia. There are as many as 2,000 unemployed probationers in that region, Deal said.

“I believe this would be a great partial solution to our current status as we continue to move towards sustainable results with the legal options available,” Deal said.

6/13 – GPB – Immigrants Struggle To Understand Law

Immigrants Struggle To Understand Law.

Mon., June 13, 2011 2:51pm (EDT)

By Jeanne Bonner

ATLANTA  —

Some immigrants are fleeing Georgia out of fear of the new immigration law. But Latino groups say some may not fully understand the law. To that end, they are holding information sessions about the measure.

Latino organizations are holding meetings with immigrants about a new state law that targets illegal immigration. The groups are trying to allay some immigrants’ fears, and sort out fact from fiction.

The groups are planning a session in Valdosta, and have already held meetings in Calhoun and Statesboro. A Savannah meeting drew 600 attendees.

Both legal and illegal immigrants are showing up to learn about the measure, known as House Bill 87.

Jerry Gonzalez with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials says some immigrants are leaving Georgia because they don’t understand the law.

“We are educating people about what HB 87 is, and isn’t, and also educating people about the pending legal process,” he said in a phone interview. “Once people know the fuller picture of both the legal process and the reality of the situation, then I think more people are inclined to stay.”

The measure will allow police to check the immigration status of some criminal suspects.

Civil rights groups have asked a federal judge to block the state from implementing the law. If the judge does not grant the injunction, parts of the measure will take effect on July 1.

Representatives from the Mexican Consulate in Atlanta have also attended some of the meetings with immigrants.

The consulate has posted guidelines to the new law on its Web site. It’s also posted guidelines for similar law that Alabama has just passed. The consulate advises Mexican citizens not to sign anything they don’t understand. And it reminds them that the American police cannot detain suspects purely because of their skin color, nationality or native language.

Mexican citizens can contact the consulate, if the police arrest them.

The meetings come as some Georgia farmers are reporting labor shortages because they say migrant workers are fleeing to other states.

The Georgia Agribusiness Council says nearly half of the farmers it surveyed don’t have enough workers to harvest their crops. About 130 produce growers, cotton and peanut processors and other farm employers responded to the survey.

Council president Bryan Tolar says farmers have reported labor shortages before. But this year’s different.

“This year we’ve seen workers that have been available in the past that are now leaving,” he said in a phone interview last week. “We’re not talking about people, uh, that we just can’t find the workers. We’re talking about people who have historically done the work who are not making themselves available to do that work. They are leaving the state.”

Gov. Nathan Deal has said he hopes the unemployed can fill some vacant farm jobs.

He received a separate survey on the labor shortage from the Department of Agriculture on Friday. Deal has been traveling in Canada; a spokeswoman said the survey results will be available sometime this week.

6/14 – CNN – Undocumented parents sweat out debate on immigration reform – This Just In – CNN.com Blogs

Undocumented parents sweat out debate on immigration reform – This Just In – CNN.com Blogs.

These little girls are U.S.-born American citizens, but their father lacks proper immigration documentation.

June 14th, 2011

11:07 AM ET

Tough new state immigration laws are striking fear in the hearts of illegal immigrants with American-born children.

“I worry about my children,” says one father of two young kids in Carrollton, Georgia. He didn’t want to give his name, because he has no legal right to reside in the United States. “My kids were born here. What will happen with them? We don’t know, and that’s the fear we have.”

Georgia, like Alabama,  Arizona and Utah, recently passed a tough immigration law.

The longer Congress waits to deal with immigration reform, the louder states seem to scream for action. According to the National Conference of Legislatures, an all-time high of 1,538 bills dealing with immigrants and refugees have been introduced in state legislatures this year alone. These measures include things like employment verification requirements for businesses and restrictions on public health services and college access for illegal immigrants. But the most worrisome for many parents are those giving local law enforcement more power to do federal immigration checks.

“Don’t worry!” is a message Atlanta immigration lawyer Charles Kuck gives his clients all day long. He’s one of those challenging the Georgia law’s constitutionality in federal court.

“These laws are bad, and they’re going to have a tremendous effect on the community. But for now we say, ‘Calm down.’ This law is meant to silence people, and we have to at this time not be silenced. We have to be vocal and not shut up.”

But for parents who fear separation from their American children, it’s easier said than done. About 2.5 million families in the U.S. have undocumented immigrant parents and American-born children, according to the Pew Hispanic Center‘s Jeff Passel.

“I’m planning to move to Miami, where I have some family,” says one undocumented mother of three who lives in Georgia. “But they tell me that the law is also being considered there.”

State lawmakers acknowledge many of these bills are meant to send a message to Washington.

“This problem is never going to be solved completely until the federal government deals with it,” says Georgia Republican State Rep. Matt Ramsey, author of the Georgia immigration bill.

So far, Washington has shown little reaction to states’ enacting immigration bills. “The drive for comprehensive immigration reform has shown unsuccessful,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, told the Atlanta Press Club on May 20.

Two weeks earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the club only that that she didn’t like a patchwork of states taking on immigration reform.

As federal immigration reform languishes, undocumented immigrant parents of American children gain time. If they can avoid deportation until their firstborn turns 21, that child can apply for his or her parent’s legal status.

6/14 – GA Dept of Agriculuture – Report on 2011 Georgia Agriculture Labor Survey

Please review a report entitled:

Production Agriculture Workforce in Georgia: A Survey to Examine Employee Availability

Submitted by the Georgia Department of Agriculture

Gary W. Black, Commissioner

June 10th, 2011

Download your copy here: http://girrc.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/georgia-dept-of-agriculture-survey-061411.pdf

For related news stories see:

• http://girrc.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/610-ajc-comfarm-labor-survey-results-sent-to-gov-deal-%C2%A0-ajc-com/

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Summary Analysis:  (pending)

6/10 – Journal.US – Alabama`s Immigration Law Targeting Children Hits New Low

Alabama`s Immigration Law Targeting Children Hits New Low.

Alabama forces public schools to make students and their parents provide proof of immigration status

For Immediate Release

June 10, 2011 – Washington, D.C. – Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed HB 56, a draconian law that takes immigration enforcement beyond Arizona’s SB 1070. While the law mimics SB 1070 by requiring local law enforcement to verify peoples’ immigration status during a stop, it also hits new lows by forcing public schools to make students and their parents provide proof of legal status, turning school administrators into immigration officers. The law also contains a broadly defined provision making it a crime to knowingly rent to, transport, or harbor unauthorized immigrants, as well as requiring employers to use E-verify.  Alabama now joins Arizona, Utah, Indiana, and Georgia in passing costly immigration enforcement laws.

To make matters worse, Governor Bentley, much like Governor Deal in neighboring Georgia, is turning a blind eye to the state’s $586 million FY2011 budget shortfall—a deficit that is bound to grow in light of this costly enforcement law. Yesterday, the ACLU and several civil rights groups announced a forthcoming legal challenge to Alabama’s immigration law. To date, Arizona has already spent $1.9 million defending its law, key provisions of which were blocked by a federal judge, not to mention the millions Arizona has already lost in cancelled conferences and tourism revenue.

Arizona has demonstrated that using a “get tough” immigration law to drive unauthorized immigrants out of the state is not only costly, discriminatory, and unconstitutional; it also does nothing to actually solve our larger immigration problems. In its lawsuit challenging Arizona’s SB1070 the federal government rightly asserted its authority over national immigration policy. What continues to be missing is Congressional action. Until Congress acts to fulfill its constitutional role in creating a functional immigration system, states will continue to look for ways to fill the leadership vacuum.
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For more information contact Wendy Sefsaf at wsefsaf@immcouncil.org or 202-507-7524.

The Immigration Policy Center (IPC), established in 2003, is the policy arm of the American Immigration Council. IPC’s mission is to shape a rational conversation on immigration and immigrant integration. Through its research and analysis, IPC provides policymakers, the media, and the general public with accurate information about the role of immigrants and immigration policy on U.S. society. IPC reports and materials are widely disseminated and relied upon by press and policy makers. IPC staff regularly serves as experts to leaders on Capitol Hill, opinion-makers and the media. IPC is a non-partisan organization that neither supports nor opposes any political party or candidate for office.

Division of the American Immigration Counsel.