Choke on it, SunDummyUSA

[whknapp]

SB1157, Trespassing charge for entrants dead

PHOENIX "” Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed legislation Monday that would have empowered police to arrest anyone not in this country legally on charges of trespass, no matter where they are.
The governor rejected arguments by proponents of the bill that police need to be able to stop, question, detain and arrest border crossers. She said that "virtually every major law enforcement group and leader in the state opposes the bill."
Napolitano's veto drew an angry reaction from Sen. Barbara Leff, R-Paradise Valley, who said it leaves police without the tools to arrest illegal immigrants they encounter.
"Anybody whose community, whose neighborhood has a 'drop house' that's been raided, when police let those people go back into your community, you can send a thank you note to the governor," Leff said...

[whknapp]

SB1157, Trespassing charge for entrants dead

PHOENIX "” Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed legislation Monday that would have empowered police to arrest anyone not in this country legally on charges of trespass, no matter where they are.
The governor rejected arguments by proponents of the bill that police need to be able to stop, question, detain and arrest border crossers. She said that "virtually every major law enforcement group and leader in the state opposes the bill."
Napolitano's veto drew an angry reaction from Sen. Barbara Leff, R-Paradise Valley, who said it leaves police without the tools to arrest illegal immigrants they encounter.
"Anybody whose community, whose neighborhood has a 'drop house' that's been raided, when police let those people go back into your community, you can send a thank you note to the governor," Leff said...

[AliBA]

Published: April 17, 2006 11:14 pm

Perdue reassures bill is not 'anti-immigrant'

From staff and wire reports

To cheers outside the Capitol on Monday, Gov. Sonny Perdue signed an immigration bill that during the legislative session spawned protests and a day-long work stoppage by thousands of immigrants in the state.

Considered one of the toughest immigration laws in the nation, the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act will verify that adults seeking many state-administered benefits are in the country legally. It sanctions employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and mandates that companies with state contracts check the immigration status of their employees.

"I want to make this clear: we are not, Georgia's government is not, and this bill is not anti-immigrant," Perdue said Monday at a signing ceremony.

"We simply believe that everyone who lives in our state needs to abide by our laws."

The law will also require police to check the immigration status of people they arrest to see if they face deportation orders.

The divisive measure is believed to be the first comprehensive immigration package to make it through a statehouse this session, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Many of the new law's provisions will not take effect until July 1, 2007.

Tisha Tallman, Southeast regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said she was studying potential legal challenges to the bill.

Tallman said she was "incredibly disappointed" that Perdue signed the bill, rather than waiting for the federal government to act.

"We recognize that immigration is ultimately a national issue that needs a national solution," Perdue said. "Because we need to know who is living here in Georgia, and for that matter, who is living in our country."

The new law will not affect emergency medical care and education for children in kindergarten through 12th grade, which federal courts have said must be provided regardless of immigration status. Exemptions were also added for some other services like prenatal care and the treatment communicable diseases.

The crowd outside the Capitol waved American flags and cheered as state Rep. Melvin Everson, one of the Georgia House's two black Republicans, denounced illegal immigration as a cancer and proclaimed: "The last time I checked, America was the land of English "” not Spanish."

The bill was sponsored by state Sen. Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, in the Senate and carried in the House by Rep. John Lunsford, R-McDonough, who said Monday the two were already working on more legislation to clamp down even ****her.

Lunsford said the state acted on illegal immigration because the federal government has not.

"They haven't done their job and they're not even pretending to do their job," he said. "It's become a political hot potato and they just keep passing it off."



The Associated Press contributed to this article.

[whknapp]

"Many of the new law's provisions will not take effect until July 1, 2007."

Useless... Every undocumented worker will be legal by then.

[AliBA]

Not likely, even if they get a bill through Remember, we have a very dysfunctional federal bureaucracy... It can't even process LEGAL immigrants efficiently. And a blanket amnesty's not going to sell. The compromise bill didn't even make it last time, and that was about a "guest worker" program that was somewhat selective in who got legalized.