Musings on Immigration

The Georgia State Senate acted recently to pass an anti-immigration measure aimed at stopping 300 Georgia residents who happen to not have legal status from attending public colleges and universities in Georgia, despite the fact that they are paying out-of-state tuition.  The Georgia House is moving to pass similar legislation at the behest of House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee Chair, Cobb County resident, and AllState Insurance Attorney Rich Gollick. THE RATIONALE The rationale behind this bill (besides the red herring argument that local governments needed clarification on whether they could accept electronic copies of "secure and verifiable documents"), is that the undocumented students are somehow using taxpayer dollars and taking spots from U.S. citizens.   You heard these arguments from all the sponsors of this bill  in the Senate.  These reasons for supporting this bill are not based in either reality or facts.  In Georgia, no undocumented student ca...

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...

If you thought HB 87 was the wrong path to follow to try to fix the problems associated with illegal immigration, then do not get on the SB 40 Super Highway. SB 40 has so many inconsistencies, incongruities, and flat out confusing sections that if by some miracle it is passed, it would never see the daylight of its effective date. As with HB 87, it is not just the intent of this bill that matters. The actual wording of the bill, and its changes to Georgia law, are essential to an understanding why this bill will NOT stop illegal immigration, will NOT stop bad actor employers from hiring people who are undocumented, and will NOT in any way solve the problems associated with a broken FEDERAL immigration system. SB 40 is much shorter in length than HB 87, and somewhat less expansive in its scope. Yet, it still manages to violate the constitution, misquote federal law, and create penalties for innocent mistakes. For example, the private right of action that is so p...