By Jeremy Redmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Georgia would follow Arizona’s lead in combating illegal immigration and likely put itself on a collision course with the Obama administration under legislation a Republican lawmaker plans to introduce here today.
Similar to Arizona’s tough new law, the Georgia bill would require state and local law enforcement officers to investigate the immigration status of people they reasonably suspect of being in the country illegally. It would also authorize police to arrest them if they are in the country illegally and transport them to a federal jail.
The federal government has argued Arizona’s law is unconstitutional and would burden law enforcement agencies, diverting their attention from the most violent illegal immigrants. Federal officials successfully sued to halt key parts of Arizona’s law, including the requirement that police check the immigration status of suspects.
State Rep. Matt Ramsey, R-Peachtree City, said he intends to introduce similar legislation today, adding that the federal government has fallen down on the job of enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. He said he was aware of the legal concerns surrounding the issue and that his bill has been carefully crafted so that it would apply only to “criminal suspects” stopped by police.
Ramsey, the co-chairman of a special legislative study committee on immigration, shared a copy of his 18-page bill with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. State Sen. Jack Murphy, R-Cumming, the other study committee co-chairman, is expected to file similar legislation in the Senate this week.
“We are doing what we can as a state to address the problem” of illegal immigration, Ramsey said this week, “and continue to hope that the federal government at some point is going to step up and get serious about addressing the myriad problems that have been created by their failure to adequately secure our borders.”
A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — which is responsible for detaining and deporting illegal immigrants — said her agency does not comment on pending legislation.
Asked if he expects his legislation to face a court challenge if enacted, Ramsey said: “I would hope the federal government would focus its energies on securing our borders rather than bringing lawsuits against states trying to deal with the consequences of illegal immigration, however, I’m not holding my breath.”
Ramsey’s bill would also:
Punish people who encourage illegal immigrants to enter Georgia and punish people who transport and conceal them when they get here.
Require private businesses with more than five employees to use a federal program called E-Verify. That program aims to verify newly hired employees are eligible to work in the United States.
Seek to provide incentives for state and local police to apply to participate in federal immigration enforcement programs, including one called 287(g). That program empowers local officials to investigate the immigration status of people arrested and jailed for other crimes.
Georgia legislators have already introduced bills aimed at barring illegal immigrants from attending the state’s colleges and collecting workers’ compensation.
If Ramsey’s bill is enacted, local and state immigration enforcement could force federal authorities to decide what to do with many more suspected illegal immigrants in Georgia. But the federal government has limited resources and can’t catch all illegal immigrants, a top federal immigration official said in a recent interview. So the agency is focusing on deporting those convicted of violent crimes, including killers, rapists, kidnappers and robbers.
“At the end of the day I only have ‘x’ number of beds and I only have ‘x’ number of officers,” Felicia Skinner, the director for enforcement and removal operations for the Atlanta field office of ICE , said in an interview Thursday. “And so our priorities are to get the most egregious, the most violent criminals off the streets. And that is what we are going to do.”
ICE has about 3,000 beds available in detention centers in Georgia for people facing deportation, Skinner said. The largest of these jails — the Stewart Detention Center in southwest Georgia — was nearly full in November with about 1,900 detainees, though that number fluctuates.
Some detainees are sent to ICE jails after they are caught crossing the border illegally or overstaying visas. Most in Stewart wound up there after being charged with other crimes, some as minor as traffic offenses, others as serious as rape, robbery and murder. ICE was unable Tuesday to immediately provide statistics on how many Stewart detainees committed violent offenses.
ICE, meanwhile, is expanding a nationwide federal fingerprint-sharing program aimed at deporting violent illegal immigrants. The “Secure Communities” program could send more detainees to ICE’s detention centers in Georgia in the coming months. Bracing for the expected increase, ICE is preparing to start sending more deportees to the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, about three hours south of Atlanta. As many as 350 could be housed there by this summer, Skinner said.
“There are lots of undocumented aliens in this country,” Skinner said last week. “It is not possible for us to go out and arrest all of them or to detain all of them. Because a state passes a law — any state that passes a law — ICE still has to focus on keeping the community safe and keeping the nation safe.”
Copyright 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution