The below news story comes from GALEO site. Gracias Jerry!
Here Original Mundo article here.

Worrisome – the situation being lived in Cobb: Fear of leaving the houseFound in Mundo Hispanico
Written by Linda Carolina Pérez
Posted on 2007-10-23

Different organizations have denounced an increase in detentions of Hispanics ( note from D.A. – they mean illegal aliens, not an entire ethnic group) in this county.

By Linda Carolina Pérez
Mundo Hispánico
10/18/2007

Posted on GALEO 10/23/07

Translated by GALEO Intern A. Gassenhuber

The lack of information about their cases has plunged into uncertainty the Hispanics detained in the Prison of Cobb County, reported a Mexican who is imprisoned in this penitentiary center.
“They do not tell us anything. The only people with whom we have contact are the guards, but they only come to give us food and do a roll call, and we cannot ask them anything,” said the man, who preferred to remain anonymous.
According to this Mexican, in his cell there are some 50 detained Hispanics, the majority for having committed minor infractions. He himself is confined for driving without a license and he claims that he does not know what destiny awaits him.
“Our families have come to pay the bail that the judge placed on us, but either (the authorities) refuse it or they accept it but do not allow us to leave. With or without bail, with or without an immigration order, we are here,” said the Mexican, who has lived five years in Georgia.
He is not the only one. Quirino Martínez was arrested more than two weeks ago for driving with a license from Mexico.
Since July, the migratory status is investigated of inmates who enter this prison. If they are undocumented, the deportation process is begun, under an agreement that the Cobb County Sheriff signed with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Ofelia López, wife of Martínez, said that still she does not know what will happen to her husband and that no one has explained what she should do. She even decided not to return to visit him, for fear that they will arrest her for lacking documents.
“I only speak over the phone with him. I have three children: a daughter of 15 who is in school, a seven-year-old boy who is also in school, and my young daughter. It scares me – what if they are left without anyone,” expressed the Mexican.
The situation already has become troubling for civil rights activists.
“This weekend we received at least 200 calls from people with terrible stories. We have hundreds of Hispanics who have been taken to prison and do not know if they are going to be able to leave or not,” said the director of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR), Adelina Nicholls.
Among cases that have been documented, the activist finds the one of a man who was detained while eating lunch in his vehicle.
“He was not even driving! They simply requested his license and because he did not have it, they seized him,” said Nicholls.
Checkpoints, or not?
The Mexican priest Jaime Molina of Church Saint Thomas the Apostle in Smyrna ascertained that in the past weeks the number of police checkpoints has increased in the various thoroughfares of Cobb County.
However, agents of the Cobb Police Department and the Marietta Police Department denied an increase in the number of operations.
We have units that implement transit law, that use laser, radar, but these are everyday activities, this is their daily work. Regarding the organizing of a check of roads, we have not done this in the past month,” said Cassie Reece, spokesperson for the Cobb Police Department.
For their part, the spokesperson for the Marietta police, Mark Bishop, said that “if someone commits a traffic violation in front of us, we stop them, but we are not carrying out the controlling of roads.”
The consul general of Mexico in Atlanta, Remedios Gómez Arnau, affirmed that the police chief of Cobb, George Hatfield, clarified that his department has no ties with ICE and expressed his interest in working with the Latino community.
The consul said that, according to her conversation with Hatfield, when the police set up checkpoints, they concentrate in areas with high rates of criminality, among them the outskirts of Six Flags park, the intersection of Austell Road and Windy Hill Road, and Franklin Road in Marietta.
While the authorities give explanations and defend their work, those who are in and out of prison live each day in anxiety and fear.
Those who are outside no longer want to leave their houses. Those who are inside only yearn for their nightmare to end.
“It may be that I’m illegal, but I believe that they are abusing my rights,” said the accused Mexican. “The only thing that I want is that they speed up my case. Even if that means that they deport me, as long as they do something.”
Pilar Verdés contributed to this article.

WHERE TO REPORT?
Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR)
770-457-5232 / Fax 770-457-5231
info@glahr.org / www.glahr.org

Cobb Cherokee Immigrant Alliance
pilgrim1@mindspring.com / 770-944-0015

Fondo de Defensa Legal y Educativo Mexicano-Estadounidense (MALDEF)
678-559-1071 / www.maldef.org

Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO)
404-745-2580 / Fax 404-759-2671
jerry@galeo.org / www.galeo.org

Attorneys Hernan, Taylor & Lee
770-650-7200 / info@htlweb.com / www.htlweb.com