Catherine E. Shoichet wrote for CNN 28 June 2011 about Paul Bridges, mayor of Uvalde, Republican mayor in the South becomes unlikely advocate for immigrants:
He thinks Governor Nathan Deal got it wrong when he signed HB 87: Continue readingBridges is waging a deeply personal battle.
Enforcement of the Georgia law could put him in prison and tear apart the families of some of his closest friends.
A federal judge on Monday blocked parts of Georgia’s law cracking down on illegal immigration from taking effect until a legal challenge is resolved.And he left other parts intact.
Judge Thomas Thrash granted a request to block parts of the law that penalize people who knowingly and willingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants while committing another crime. He also blocked provisions that authorize officers to verify the immigration status of someone who can’t provide proper identification.
Thrash wrote that under parts of the law, the state is enforcing immigration law that should be left to the federal government.
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PS: Owed to Steve Perkins.
Laura Vecsey wrote in Pennlive 16 June 2011, Harrisburg City Council looks to introduce resolution that would allow bankruptcy paperwork to be prepared:
It seems Harrisburg applied for Act 47, which is apparently a state bankruptcy protection plan last October, but now: Continue readingHarrisburg City Council member Brad Koplinski is seeking to introduce a resolution that will allow the council to prepare paper work that might become necessary should a majority of the council decide to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
Koplinski said the urgency of being prepared escalated Thursday when state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola introduced legislation that called for a state takeover of Harrisburg should the distressed city fail to adopt the Act 47 plan it was presented Monday.
Megan McArdle wrote in the Atlantic 21 June 2011, Georgia’s Harsh Immigration Law Costs Millions in Unharvested Crops. She started by quoting Jay Bookman, who quoted the VDT. She then goes into the economics:
Yes, that would be the problem. A law that benefits private prison company CCA at the expense of Georgia taxpayers while putting Georgia farmers out of business.The economics here aren’t particularly complicated, and I’m sure they won’t be new to the sophisticated readers of the Atlantic, but they are useful to look at and consider explicitly when thinking about issues like this.
It goes like this. If you’re not going to let illegal immigrants do the jobs they are currently being hired to do, then farmers will have to raise wages to replace them. Since farmers are taking a risk in hiring immigrant workers, you can bet they were getting a significant deal on wage costs relative to “market wages”. I put market wages here in quotations, because it’s quite possible that the wages required to get workers to do the job are so high that it’s no longer profitable for farmers to plant the crops in the first place.
She concludes: Continue reading
We already knew that, but JPI has quantified it: Continue readingYesterday, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report chronicling the political strategies of private prison companies “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” The report’s authors note that while the total number of people in prison increased less than 16 percent, the number of people held in private federal and state facilities increased by 120 and 33 percent, correspondingly. Government spending on corrections has soared since 1997 by 72 percent, up to $74 billion in 2007. And the private prison industry has raked in tremendous profits. Last year the two largest private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group — made over $2.9 billion in revenue.
JPI claims the private industry hasn’t merely responded to the nation’s incarceration woes, it has actively sought to create the market conditions (ie. more prisoners) necessary to expand its business.
Patrick Davis wrote, Rural Republicans in Georgia can’t have it both ways on immigration reform
That last link is to Parolees to replace migrants? Gov. Deal says put probationers in fields by David Rodock in the VDT 15 June 2011, which included: Continue readingWith the law passed and ready for implementation, many rural farmers—especially in Central and South Georgia—are taking notice to the exodus of migrant workers and immigrants which has left some farmers without workers to pick crops.
Many of these same farmers that are hurting economically and losing crops in these rural counties had voted Republican for years.
Valdosta’s Ellis Black who represents parts of Lowndes County as a state representative helped to pass Gov. Nathan Deal’s conservative and punitive agenda and consequently it has contributed to drive an increasing number of migrant workers out of the Peach State.
More on the lawsuit filed to overturn HB87 that has scared the farmworkers out of state.In the the press release by GALEO 16 June 2011:
GALEO (Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials), the leading Latino organization focused on civic engagement and leadership development of the Latino community in Georgia, has submitted an Amicus Brief to ask the federal court to stop implementation of Georgia’s HB87 law. The brief was filed by the law firm of Rohan Law, P.C. GALEO filed the brief in an effort to protect constitutional and civil rights of Georgians.Of course, the Georgia plan is to turn it into private safety anyway, by privatizing prisons for private profit of a few at taxpayer expense.
“This law will adversely impact our state by creating a state-law system for the regulation of immigration and immigration enforcement. This new scheme by the state is not only unconstitutional but will also encourage egregious violations of rights of Georgia’s residents and visitors,” said Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director of GALEO.
GALEO believes that HB87 will disproportionately harm certain communities of color and would also encourage racial profiling. Enforcement of HB87 cannot be accomplished in a race-neutral fashion. Additionally, there are serious concerns of local law enforcement officials being unequipped to enforce HB87.
HB87 also threatens public safety in Georgia. By placing law enforcement officials in the position to enforce a broken immigration policy, HB87 will instill fear and mistrust in Georgia’s communities of color and drastically chill the reporting of crime and cooperation in criminal investigations by minorities. This erosion of trust would undermine public safety efforts for all Georgians.
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This fits right in with Joe Pritchard’s rumored suggestion to replace animal shelter employees with interns.With the recent exodus of undocumented Hispanic migrant workers leaving Georgia to avoid the consequences of House Bill 87, Gov. Nathan Deal made a statement on Tuesday suggesting that probationers could potentially fill the approximately 11,000 open jobs in the state’s agricultural economy.
“Specifically, I asked Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens and (Department of Agriculture) Commissioner Gary Black to review the current situation and offer possible options,” said Deal in his statement. “Commissioner Owens has indicated that there are 100,000 probationers statewide, 8,000 of which are in the Southwest region of the state and 25 percent of which are unemployed … 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.”
The potential move would allow probationers who are unable to find work to have a source of income, provided they are able to meet employer standards. Income can then be used to pay probation fines, along with other state fines that are a requirement of their probation sentence.
Hey, if there’s one thing Georgia is good at, it’s locking up more people even while other states realize they can’t afford to do that anymore.
So if probationers don’t want to pick onions, lock ’em up again, in the new private prison VLCIA wants to build in Lowndes County! That will benefit private prison executives and investors and not us in Lowndes County, but hey, that will serve those immigrants right!
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According to Albor Ruiz in the New York Daily News, 12 June 2011,
Washington’s inaction on the immigration crisis is no longer sprouting only hostile and inhumane local laws. But there is growing evidence an increasing number of local and state officials have tired of playing an abusive and costly anti-immigration game they don’t believe in.And who benefits by arresting such people? Private prison companies, which hold the new prisoners.Two weeks ago, Gov. Cuomo pulled New York State from the Secure Communities federal deportation program, following Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn who had done the same weeks before. And days after Cuomo’s decision Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick took the same courageous step. All three governors are Democrats and strong allies of President Obama.
They had plenty of reasons to quit the controversial Department of Homeland Security program. Promoted as a tool to deport undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes, in reality Secure Communities targets mostly low-level offenders or those never convicted of any crime at all.
It’s not just northeast state, either. Here’s a city and state on the frontline of immigration, Los Angeles, California: Continue reading
Liz Goodwin blogs in The Lookout for Yahoo! News, 10 June 2011, Alabama immigration law pressures schools to check immigration status
Alabama’s new immigration law is drawing comparisons to SB1070, the anti-illegal immigration crackdown signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer last year before a judge quickly blocked it from going into effect.So deal with it by putting more unfunded work on the heads of school administrators?But Alabama’s new law is actually much broader and much tougher than SB 1070–most notably for a provision that asks school administrators to check the immigration status of their students.
Supporters say the law will help the state determine how much public money goes to educating undocumented children.
“That is where one of our largest costs come from,” Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale told The Montgomery Advertiser. “It’s part of the cost factor.”
Besides, if all the schools are required to do is check, what money does that save? Continue reading