Immigrants living illegally in the U.S./Georgia as of 2012
Total: 11.7 million/398,000
With U.S. citizen children: 3.4 million/116,000
Married to U.S. citizens: 770,000/23,000
Source: Migration Policy Institute
Clayton Sheriff’s Office will no longer hold detainees facing deportation. Article, B1.
Clayton Sheriff’s Office will no longer hold detainees facing deportation. Article, B1.
President Barack Obama will reveal long-awaited plans Thursday to grant legal status to up to 5 million people now living illegally in the United States.
Obama is preparing to temporarily shield from deportation and make work permits available to millions of immigrants without legal status. Among them are parents of U.S. citizens and those who were brought illegally to the country as minors.
The plan, which will be unveiled in a televised address Thursday evening, has sparked a furious debate in Georgia and Washington over whether Obama has the legal authority to act and what the fallout will be.
It’s unknown how many people this would apply to in Georgia. There were 116,000 people without legal status but with U.S. citizen children living in Georgia in 2012, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank that evaluates migration policies.
Ruth Morales of Flowery Branch is one of them. She illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico in 1998, fleeing gang violence and seeking work here. She gave birth to a son in the U.S. and is now facing deportation. Her 8-year-old son is getting special help for his learning disabilities at a Hall County elementary school.
“We want to stay here,” she said. “In Mexico it is more dangerous now.”
Phil Kent, a member of the Georgia Immigration and Enforcement Review Board, called Obama’s act “an unconstitutional overreach of presidential power which undermines the rule of law.”
Kent pointed to a 2010 study showing that illegal immigration costs Georgia taxpayers $2.4 billion per year in public benefits, a figure that includes U.S. citizen children of those here illegally.
“This new influx will obviously boost that whopping expenditure, since these amnestied immigrants are entitled to a wide range of public benefits,” Kent said in an email.
The act also raises legal questions.
In September, Jason Cade was among 136 law professors who signed a letter to Obama, making the case that he has the power to shield certain immigrants from deportation. They cited U.S. Supreme Court case law and actions taken by Congress and Republican presidential administrations.
“It is well within his authority,” said Cade, who teaches immigration law at the University of Georgia. “Using scarce resources in the most effective way is part of the president’s duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. This seems like a very sensible action.”
Jan Ting, who served as an assistant commissioner with the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said Obama is about to run afoul of the Constitution.
“He is acting in defiance of Congress and he really does not have the authority to do that in these circumstances,” said Ting, a professor of immigration law at Temple University and a board member with the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates admitting fewer immigrants. “If he can do this in the face of congressional opposition, what can’t he do?”
Another part of Obama’s plan would reportedly expand opportunities for skilled foreign guest workers who are in high demand in the Atlanta region and elsewhere. In the 2012 fiscal year, employers asked the federal government for permission to employ such workers for 15,856 positions in Atlanta.
Supporters of expanding the H-1B visa program say employers can’t always find U.S. citizens with the right skills, specifically in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They say these workers will help boost Georgia’s economy. There are thousands of open positions for information technology workers in Atlanta now, including engineers, programmers and computer scientists, said Tino Mantella, president of the Technology Association of Georgia.
“We should be trying to make it as easy as possible to keep the talent here in the U.S. and be more welcoming and not make people jump through flaming hoops of fire to stay here,” Mantella said. “Ultimately, it is going to create jobs.”
Critics argue the program depresses American wages and that the high-end jobs Mantella speaks of should go to U.S. citizens, particularly amid high unemployment. A 2011 Government Accountability Office report said officials could not readily say how many H-1B workers were in the U.S. or how many stay after their visas expire, leaving the program vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
“These visas are displacing Americans, especially new graduates,” said Kim Berry, a computer programmer in California who leads the Programmers Guild, which represents U.S. technology workers.
Republicans in Congress quickly denounced the long-rumored plan as they continued to debate the proper response.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner referred to the president as “Emperor Obama,” and pointed to the numerous times during the debate over immigration reform when Obama said he could not act unilaterally.
The U.S. Senate passed a bill last year with support from a dozen Republicans that would allow for a 13-year path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally, if they learn English and pay a fine and back taxes. It also beefed up border security and streamlined the visa system.
But the Republican-controlled House never brought the bill up for a vote, denouncing it as “amnesty.”
The president had told activists he would take broad executive action this summer, but he delayed until after the election in an attempt to spare red-state Democrats the backlash. It didn’t work, as Republicans took over the Senate in a nationwide wave.
“He is totally ignoring what the American people said Nov. 4,” said Rep. Tom Graves, a Republican from Ranger. “The message that was sent all across this country (is they are) very disgusted in how the president has taken actions such as this.”
Funding for the government expires Dec. 11, and Republicans in the House and Senate aim to fight back against the immigration order in a funding bill. Graves, a central figure in last year’s partial federal government shutdown, is part of a small group convened by House leaders to discuss options.
The goal, Graves said, is to “keep the government open, and shut the president down.”
Georgia’s U.S. House Democrats rallied behind Obama. In a feat of message discipline, they each compared it to historic presidential actions such as Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Harry S. Truman’s order to desegregate the military.
“It’s long overdue,” said Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat and civil rights hero who was arrested earlier this year at the Capitol in an immigration protest.
“It’s the right thing to do. It’s the fair thing to do. It’s the economic thing to do. It’s good for the people that would be affected. It will be good for all the American citizens.”
About the Author
