Athens Banner Herald
December 14, 2010

D.A. King

Georgia lawmakers are considering ways to solve the illegal immigration crisis. The solution is obvious. Enforcement works, just like with any other crime. Illegal immigrants migrate out of every area in which jobs become unavailable and the law is enforced, and take budget-crashing dependents with them.

Genuine dedication from Georgia’s legislative leadership in protecting American workers and driving illegal immigrants out of Georgia will be measured by the enthusiasm with which common-sense enforcement measures are implemented in the 2011 legislative session. Here are some suggestions:

► Finish the job begun in 2006 with passage of Senate Bill 529, the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act. In part, GSICA requires local governments and agencies that administer public benefits to use an affidavit system and the federal SAVE program to verify the eligibility of applicants for those finite taxpayer funded benefits.

However, there is no penalty for violating GSICA, and it shows. With 159 counties and 535 municipalities in Georgia, and a number of state and local agencies doling out public benefits, there were only 300 agencies authorized to use SAVE as of Nov. 1.

The Association County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association have successfully beat back repeated attempts to add penalty language absent in the 2006 law. The entire 2006 Georgia immigration law, then the toughest in the nation, should be re-examined, overhauled and strengthened. Compliance will only come with constant monitoring, audits and meaningful sanctions and enforcement.

► On the question of whether Georgia should pass laws similar to what has been passed in Arizona, the answer is yes. Nearly half of the 50 states already are in the process of doing just that. More than 100,000 illegal immigrants have fled Arizona since its Senate Bill 1070 was passed.

Georgia lawmakers should emulate Arizona legislators in every way they’ve attacked illegal immigration, starting with protecting jobs by requiring all employers to use the no-cost federal E-Verify database to help ensure newly hired employees are eligible to work in the United States. Arizona has had a state law requiring all businesses to use E-Verify since 2008. Georgia would catch up with Utah, Mississippi and South Carolina with required universal use.

Only Georgia’s public employers and their contractors now are required to use E-Verify. Not all do.

In this year’s General Assembly session, House Bill 1259, the Georgia Employer and Worker Protection Act, was introduced with a goal of reducing the hiring of black-market labor. It required all employers to use the E-Verify system to obtain or renew a business license. It is a quite workable and reasonable idea, unless you are a criminal employer.

However, HB 1259 never saw even a single subcommittee hearing. The GOP-controlled Georgia government cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the real cause of most illegal immigration, which is illegal employment.

The real culprits in this mess are the employers who take advantage of the fact that they have almost no chance of being punished for hiring taxpayer-subsidized, illegal, replacement labor, while we struggle to pay unemployment benefits to jobless citizens. Nobody doesn’t see what is happening here.

The good news for Georgians properly incensed about losing jobs to illegal immigrants is that Gov.-elect Nathan Deal has repeatedly and publicly expressed his support for statewide use of the E-Verify system. More than 16,000 private Georgia employers already are voluntarily using the free federal tool with no complaints.

When we are again watching other states discuss the possibility of copying Georgia’s immigration laws, we’ll know our elected officials have returned to a real effort to make our state an illegal-immigrant-free zone.

• D.A. King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society. He lobbied in support of the 2006 Georgia immigration law.

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