Three of Georgia’s top leaders are preparing to create a powerful investigative panel aimed at cracking down on state and local officials who fail to enforce the state's immigration-related laws.
Called the Immigration Enforcement Review Board, the seven-member panel will have the power to investigate complaints filed against city, county and state officials, hold hearings, subpoena documents, adopt regulations and hand out punishment. That punishment could include loss of state funding for government agencies and fines up to $5,000 for officials who "knowingly" violate the laws.
The board stems from Georgia’s new immigration enforcement law -- House Bill 87 -- much of which went into effect July 1. The law requires Georgia’s governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker to appoint the panel’s members, but it does not say when they must do so. Nor does it set requirements for who may serve on the board, though it does say they will serve without pay.
Spokesmen for Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker David Ralston say their offices are working on appointing members to the board, but they did not say when that would happen.
The board will have the authority to look into complaints that government officials are violating immigration-related state laws, including one that requires government agencies and certain government contractors to use the federal E-Verify program. That program helps employers ensure newly hired workers are eligible to work in the United States.
It will also have the power to investigate allegations of local governments creating sanctuaries for illegal immigrants by not cooperating with federal officials in reporting immigration status information. Additionally, the panel could look into complaints about government officials failing to require people to show certain forms of identification before issuing them public benefits, such as food stamps, housing assistance and business licenses.
City and county officials say they will follow the new law but worry it will create unfunded mandates for them. They said they were unaware of any local governments in Georgia that have created sanctuaries for illegal immigrants.
Meanwhile, supporters of the law say illegal immigrants are burdening Georgia’s taxpayer-funded schools, hospitals and jails. A recent estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center puts the number of illegal immigrants in Georgia at 425,000, the seventh-highest total among the states.
“It’s costing us millions of dollars to have illegals in our country,” said Lori Pesta, president of the Republican Women of Cherokee County. “We definitely need someone to oversee this entire situation because it has gotten greatly out of hand.”
At least one critic sees the potential for the new board to have a sinister outcome.
“I feel bad for the folks that are going to be targets of this [Sen. Joe] McCarthy-like panel looking for ghosts that don’t exist,” said Charles Kuck, an Atlanta-area immigration attorney and a board member with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. “This is the witch hunt commission.”
Kuck is among a group of attorneys and civil and immigrant rights groups that are challenging the constitutionality of other parts of the new law. At their urging, a federal judge in Atlanta last month temporarily halted two parts of the law.
One of those parts would empower police to investigate the immigration status of certain suspects. The other would punish people who transport or harbor illegal immigrants here.
The judge, however, left most of the law intact, including the provision that calls for the oversight board. That provision originated as a compromise between the author of the bill -- Rep. Matt Ramsey, R-Peachtree City -- and organizations that advocate for cities and counties in the state Legislature.
Ramsey originally proposed allowing state residents to sue local and state officials who fail to enforce state immigration-related laws. But critics raised concerns about the possibility of frivolous and costly lawsuits that cities and counties would be forced to defend with taxpayers' dollars.
Clint Mueller, the legislative director for the Association County Commissioners of Georgia, said he pitched the idea for an oversight board to Ramsey as an alternative.
“The original language in the bill was problematic for the counties on several fronts," he said. "We were very concerned about the costs of litigation and specifically frivolous litigation.”
Ramsey said he was sensitive to the concerns about frivolous lawsuits and agreed the oversight board was the better way to go.
Last month, Mueller’s association sent a letter asking Deal, Cagle and Ralston to appoint a county commissioner to the board. The letter says a county commissioner could “have experience and firsthand knowledge of many of the issues that will be brought before the board, how to efficiently and effectively administer the law, and how to best ensure the broadest compliance possible.”
R. Eric Clarkson is the mayor of Chamblee, one of the most diverse communities in Georgia. Of those over the age of 4 living in the north DeKalb County city, an estimated 66 percent are foreign-born, according to the U.S. census. And of those, more than half are not U.S. citizens. Clarkson bristled when he was asked about the oversight board.
“It never ceases to amaze me that state representatives don’t ever seem to think that cities and counties can operate their governments efficiently,” he said.
Like Clarkson, Joe Lee Williams, chairman of the Stewart County Board of Commissioners, worries the state’s new immigration law will create additional costs for his government. The annual operating budget for his South Georgia county of 4,500 people is just $3 million. Nearly one in five families there lives below the federal poverty level.
“Right now we are running on a shoestring budget,” he said. “If it did cost money, that would put a strain on our budget.”
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