A new state panel charged with helping enforce Georgia’s immigration laws met for the first time Thursday and elected its chairman amid controversy over the law that created it and calls for one of its members to be removed.
The seven-member Immigration Enforcement Review Board unanimously elected Ben Vinson, a local attorney, as its chairman.
Moments later, Vinson stressed the board is limited in what it can do. He said it will focus on investigating complaints from registered voters that city, county and state officials are not enforcing several immigration-related laws in Georgia.
“We can’t go out and seek out issues to explore, and we are not here to interpret federal or state or any other type of immigration law and come up with proposals for how to change the law,” said Vinson, who was appointed by Gov. Nathan Deal to the board.
But the panel is already receiving requests to clarify several parts of the omnibus legislation that created it, House Bill 87.
The Association County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association sent a list of questions about the law to the board this week. One of the questions focuses on a part of the law that will require people applying for public benefits -- such as housing assistance and business licenses -- to provide at least one “secure and verifiable” document.
“We need clarification,” said Todd Edwards, the ACCG’s associate legislative director. “We need it to comply with the law. They need it to enforce it.”
Vinson’s panel met for about half an hour before adjourning Thursday. He indicated the panel will set up committees and establish procedures for accepting complaints at a future meeting in the next few months. His panel has the power to hold hearings, subpoena documents, adopt regulations and hand out punishment, including fines up to $5,000.
Shortly before the panel met Thursday, about three dozen women from across the nation demonstrated against HB 87 outside the state Capitol. Some members of the We Belong Together Delegation carried signs stating: “Hate Hurts Georgia” and “No Human Being is Illegal.”
House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta, joined the demonstrators and blasted Deal’s decision to appoint Phil Kent to the panel. Kent is the national spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control, which supports deporting illegal immigrants and opposes guest-worker legislation.
On Tuesday, a group of civil and immigrant rights activists presented Deal’s office with a petition bearing 5,000 signatures that calls on the governor to remove Kent from the board. Kent’s appointment has also drawn criticism from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.
The SPLC has long labeled Americans for Immigration Control as a hate group, and the ADL said in a letter to Deal that Kent has a history of making "deeply disturbing" comments about immigrants.
Deal appointed Kent to the board this month. The governor’s office has so far declined to comment on calls for his ouster. Kent responded Thursday, dismissing his critics as “Democrats who have never liked HB 87. These are people who don’t like this panel.”
“I am a great target for the open-borders, multicultural lobby,” he said. “Publicity stunts is what they do.”
Kent also confirmed he opposes multiculturalism.
“I think everyone regardless of race and ethnicity ought to assimilate into being an American,” he said. “They ought to learn English and learn our civic courses and be patriotic. But that has absolutely nothing to do with my service on this board or with anyone’s service on this board. We are for strict enforcement of our laws on the books.”
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