The top federal officials in charge of enforcing immigration laws in Georgia say they are now focusing on busting employers who knowingly hire unlawful immigrants and on deporting violent criminals who are in this country illegally.
They acknowledged they are dealing with a serious problem in Georgia. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security report says 480,000 “unauthorized immigrants” were living in the state as of January 2009, ranking Georgia sixth among states behind California, Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois, respectively, and just ahead of Arizona.
Immigration officials in Georgia say they have limited resources and many other responsibilities, including fighting a variety of crimes from child pornography to transnational gangs. Taking their orders from Washington, they say they are concentrating on crimes that pose the greatest threats to the public and national security -- such as murder, rape, and robbery -- and the exploitation of cheap labor.
“It is similar to a police department,” Brock Nicholson, the acting special agent in charge in Atlanta for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's homeland security investigations, said in an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“If there is a large amount of crime going on in the community, the police department can focus on speeding. The police department can focus on shoplifting or jaywalking. But I would think the communities would rather have them focus on murders, rapes and armed robberies.”
Illegal immigrants are attracted to Georgia because of the jobs here, especially in the agricultural industry, so prosecuting employers who hire them can make the biggest dent in the problem, the officials said.
“Cheap labor unfortunately was a magnet not just for Georgia but for other states,” said Felicia Skinner, the Atlanta field office director for ICE's enforcement and removal operations. “And that is why this administration has decided it is going to focus on the employers who are exploiting this cheap labor.”
ICE officials are checking up on business owners by inspecting their hiring records. So far this federal fiscal year – which covers October to September -- officials have arrested 341 people on illegal immigration charges at worksites nationwide, according to ICE. Of those, 152 were managers. That is in contrast to 2009, when 114 managers and 296 employees were arrested, and fiscal year 2008, when 135 managers and 968 employees were arrested. ICE officials were not immediately able to provide comparable statistics specifically for Georgia.
Further, the U.S. deported 387,790 illegal immigrants during fiscal year 2009, up from 369,221 in fiscal year 2008, according to ICE. Between October and June of this year, federal officials had deported 13,707 illegal immigrants from Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, the states for which Nicholson and Skinner are responsible. Of those, 8,189 were convicted criminals. During that same time frame, 263,537 illegal immigrants were deported nationwide, 132,637 of them convicted criminals.
During previous administrations, federal officials cracked down on illegal immigration through worksite raids. But in April 2009, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued new guidance saying ICE should refocus and target violent criminals and employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Napolitano said, “a scattershot approach where DHS targets any and all of the around 12 million people in the United States illegally does not amount to an approach that maximizes public safety. A new approach is needed, which is what the new priorities provide.”
The new priorities also bring some new concerns.
Bryan Tolar, a spokesman for the Georgia Agribusiness Council, said there should be some protections for businessmen who follow the law but inadvertently hire illegal immigrants.
“There is a difference,” said Tolar, whose council says it represents a $65 billion food and fiber production and processing industry in Georgia. “I haven’t broken the law if I hire someone that is here illegally, if they presented me documentation they showed to me that they were legal.”
The Metro Atlanta Landscape and Turf Association was concerned enough that its members consulted with an attorney and a state legislator about immigration laws in October, said the association’s executive director, Mary Kay Woodworth.
“The landscape contractors and owners,” she said, “who join associations such as MALTA and who are running their businesses in a professional, legal manner shouldn’t be in any trouble at all.”
Q & A: Immigration's new priorities
Brock Nicholson is acting special agent in charge in Atlanta for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's homeland security investigations, which cover a variety of crimes, including illegal immigration, trade, travel and finance. Felicia Skinner is the Atlanta field office director for ICE's enforcement and removal operations. Her office oversees the detention and removal of illegal immigrants and efforts to locate immigrants who have unlawfully reentered the country. Both Skinner and Nicholson are responsible for enforcing the laws in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. In separate interviews with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently, they talked about their changing priorities in Georgia. Their answers were edited for brevity:
Felicia Skinner
Q: There is this recent Homeland Security Department report that shows Georgia has more illegal immigrants than Arizona and ranks sixth nationally in the number. How is that possible and what attracts them to Georgia?
Skinner: I would say it is the industry. It is the work, agricultural work. I can tell you with the economy there has been a slowing in the number of undocumented folks in Georgia. I have spoken with the Mexican consul and he has seen an increase of his nationals that are requesting documents to return home because they can’t find work. I don’t know for certain, but we think that is related to the economy. But cheap labor unfortunately was a magnet not just for Georgia but for other states. And that is why this administration has decided it is going to focus on the employers who are exploiting this cheap labor.... And that is a major magnet.
Q: Tell me about your efforts to enforce immigration laws here in Georgia.
Skinner: My teams are responsible for locating and apprehending fugitives. We monitor the local, state and county facilities to intercept foreign born criminals and to ensure those folks are not released back into the community and to ensure their removal… from the United States.
Q: Tell me your priorities in enforcing immigration laws in Georgia.
Skinner: We are primarily focused on locating and apprehending criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to the community and those who pose a threat to national security. Those are our No. 1 priorities.
Brock Nicholson
Q: People may think that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is all about enforcing just immigration laws, but you do a variety of other things. Could you talk about that?
Nicholson: We do the whole gamut. We do everything from immigration… counter-proliferation investigations, stopping child pornographers, narcotics smuggling, commercial fraud, intellectual property rights violations, people that are selling items that claim to be one thing but in reality are other things... There is even a great safety issue. We have seen some goods coming out of certain Asian countries –- Christmas lights that burn down a house because they are not made with the same standards that we require here in the United States but are sold as if they were.
Q: As far as enforcing the nation’s immigration laws, where do you focus your efforts?
Nicholson: Our efforts are focused primarily on those illegal aliens that offer the greatest threat to the United States, those illegal aliens involved in transnational gangs, which commit tremendous amounts of violence, murders, rapes and carjackings. We focus on illegal aliens involved in the smuggling of narcotics. We look for illegal aliens that are exploiting our children… We certainly are focusing on employers who we think contribute to this problem. And we assess great fines and we put people in jail. We go after their assets… .To a great extent, they often exploit these undocumented workers, paying them wages that they wouldn’t pay anyone else, oftentimes barely anything. Just short of slavery. Terrible work conditions.
Q: How would you assess how well you are enforcing the nation’s immigration laws?
Nicholson: I think we do a great job given the resources we have. It is a resource allocation issue. We focus our resources, which are limited because it costs a lot to have a bunch of agents out there… It is similar to a police department. If there is a large amount of crime going on in the community, the police department can focus on speeding. The police department can focus on shoplifting or jaywalking. But I would think the communities would rather have them focus on murders, rapes and armed robberies. That is the same thing we see. We focus on the greatest threat to the national security.
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