Landmark Decision is Fourth Draconian State Law Blocked by Courts

A federal judge in Georgia today issued the latest judicial rebuke to anti-immigrant laws passed this legislative season by state legislatures across the country. The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the ACLU of Georgia and a coalition of civil rights groups requested that the law be blocked from going into effect, pending a final ruling on its constitutionality. Today’s decision makes clear that H.B. 87 is unlikely to survive constitutional review because it improperly interferes with federal law.

Georgia is the fourth state in which a federal court has blocked costly and controversial anti-immigrant laws. A federal appellate court upheld an Arizona district court decision to block SB 1070’s most troubling provisions, and after ACLU and NILC lawsuits federal district courts put Utah and Indiana’s laws on hold pending further review. The ACLU, NILC and the Southern Poverty Law Center have also announced plans to challenge Alabama and South Carolina’s Arizona-inspired anti-immigrant laws.

Omar Jadwat, staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, said  “Georgia’s law, like Arizona’s, Utah’s, and Indiana’s before it, has been blocked by a federal court because it is fundamentally flawed. The universal failure of these laws in the courts is a stinging rebuke to state lawmakers who have pushed laws that would threaten all of our freedoms in order to express their hostility to immigrants and immigration. Thanks to today’s ruling, Georgia will not become a ‘show me your papers’ state on July 1.”

Debbie Seagraves, Executive Director of the ACLU of Georgia added,  “This decision means that people who minister to the poor and offer assistance to those in need can continue to practice their beliefs without being criminalized.”

The civil rights coalition includes the ACLU, NILC, the ACLU of Georgia, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Asian Law Caucus, Federal & Hassan, LLP, Kuck Immigration Partners, LLC, and G. Brian Spears.

By KIM SEVERSON
Published: June 27, 2011

ATLANTA — A federal judge has blocked the most controversial parts of a tough new Georgia immigration law that was to have taken effect Friday, but left most of the law’s provisions intact.

The judge, Thomas W. Thrash Jr. of Federal District Court, issued a temporary injunction against two sections, saying the state was attempting to write immigration laws that would pre-empt federal statute.

One would require law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of suspects who cannot provide identification. The other would punish suspects who intentionally transport or house someone in the country illegally.

“Those were definitely the provisions most devastating to our plaintiffs and to many Georgia residents,” said Azadeh Shahshahani of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the parties that brought the suit. “This is a very important decision and an important day.”

Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, said the state would appeal, arguing in a statement from his spokesman that the ruling underscored an essential problem facing many states: “Beyond refusing to help with our state’s illegal immigration problem, the federal government is determined to be an obstacle.”

Georgia lawmakers trying to stop the flow of immigrants who have moved to their state illegally said the ruling would give them time to fine-tune the law to make it more palatable to the courts.

“I’m pleased that he just didn’t put an injunction against the whole law,” said State Senator Jack Murphy, a Republican. “We’ll call it a partial victory.”

Parts of the law that remain include a provision requiring businesses and government agencies to use a federal system to check the immigration status of new workers and imposes fines of up to $250,000 and 15 years in prison for people who use fake identification to get a job.

Another provision, which will require people applying for food stamps or public housing to provide specific forms of identification, will go into effect in January.

Georgia now joins several other states, including Arizona, Indiana and Utah, facing similar legal challenges to new immigration laws. The A.C.L.U. says it plans to contest an immigration law in Alabama and one in South Carolina, which Gov. Nikki Haley signed Monday.

Whether the injunction will soften the fear among immigrants in Georgia or help farmers who say the law has sent their workers to other states remains to be seen.

Juan Garcia, 48, an assistant manager at a Mexican restaurant in a northeastern Atlanta suburb, heard about the ruling while he was picking up supplies. He ran into the restaurant and delivered the news. People were excited, he said, but many customers and workers are still considering moving out of state.

“We’re still waiting,” he said. “We don’t know what will happen, but after today, we will keep waiting some more.”

Wall Street Journal

By CAMERON MCWHIRTER

ATLANTA—A federal judge temporarily blocked parts of Georgia’s new illegal immigration law from taking effect Friday.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. on Monday suspended a provision of the law giving local police expanded powers to investigate whether someone they suspect of a crime is also an illegal immigrant. Another part of the law that imposes penalties on people suspected of a crime who knowingly house or transport illegal immigrants also was stopped, pending resolution of the entire suit—a class action brought against the State of Georgia by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center and other groups that oppose stricter illegal-immigration laws by states.

In his 45-page decision, Judge Thrash stated that portions of the law, passed this year, appeared to give state and local authorities responsibilities that constitutionally are the federal government’s responsibility.

“The apparent legislative intent is to create such a climate of hostility, fear, mistrust and insecurity that all illegal aliens will leave Georgia,” the judge wrote.

“The widespread belief that the federal government is doing nothing about illegal immigration is the belief in a myth,” he added.

Giving local police increased powers to demand identification papers from suspected illegal immigrants posed “a serious risk” that the law would “result in inconsistent civil immigration policies not only between federal and state governments, but among law enforcement jurisdictions within Georgia,” he wrote.

An ACLU attorney on the case, Azadeh Shahshahani, said, “The core provisions have been blocked. On the whole, it’s definitely a victory.”

Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, was “disappointed” in the ruling, his spokesman Brian Robinson said in a news release.

“Beyond refusing to help with our state’s illegal immigration problem, the federal government is determined to be an obstacle,” Mr. Robinson said. The state will appeal the decision.

Many states have passed tough immigration legislation in the past year, but in recent weeks groups challenging those laws have won at least partial temporary blocks on legislation in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and now Georgia.

Gov. Deal signed the legislation—known as House Bill 87—last month. He made a campaign promise to crack down on high medical and prison costs that he said state and local governments were incurring as a result of illegal immigration.

Georgia’s law also requires many businesses to use a federal database to check new hires to make sure they are legally allowed to work in the U.S.That part of the law, which will be phased in starting in January, has angered Georgia farmers, many of whom say the new law already has scared many workers.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304314404576411962527558534.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5

ACLU Blog of Rights

Jun 23rd, 2011
Posted by Chara Fisher Jackson, ACLU of Georgia

Last weekend, on the day designated to celebrate the abolition of slavery, an anti-abortion group decided to exploit the observance of Juneteenth to spread a demeaning and insulting message to the black community. Through billboards erected throughout the Atlanta area, the group makes the outrageous assertion that a black woman’s private health decision is more harmful than slavery. These billboards accuse black women who have made the difficult and personal decision to end a pregnancy of making slavery “seem overly generous.”

As an organization dedicated to fighting the legacy of slavery and institutionalized racism in Georgia and throughout the country, we at the ACLU of Georgia were stunned and horrified when we learned of the campaign. All women facing an unintended pregnancy — regardless of race — should have the opportunity and support they need to make the best decisions for themselves and their families, whether that is continuing the pregnancy and parenting, adoption, or abortion,

No matter how you feel about abortion, we should all be able to agree that a black woman who has had an abortion should not be singled out and degraded like this as a means of advancing an ideological agenda. From forced sterilizations to the experiments at Tuskegee, there is a long and disgraceful history in this country of regulating and exploiting black women’s and men’s bodies and basic dignity. By suggesting that black women and families cannot be trusted, and their decisions about childbearing must be regulated and controlled for their own good, these billboards are a part of the same pattern of denigration and oppression.

This publicity stunt is distracting from the issues that truly matter. About 35 percent of black children live in poverty. That is more than double the rate for white children. The infant mortality rate for black children in Washington, D.C., for example, rivals that of some undeveloped nations. If those behind these billboards and this hateful rhetoric were truly concerned about the health and welfare of the African-American community, and the meaning of Juneteenth, they would fight to ensure that everyone has access to quality health care; to increase support for programs that build safe schools, safe communities, access to jobs, and basic necessities like food and shelter.

In Georgia, the ACLU has fought zero tolerance policies, criminalization of youth, policing of schools and school disciplinary practices that disproportionately impact our children and feed the School-to-Prison Pipeline. These policies, and others like them that push black children out of school, have to be challenged. The failure to educate black children, the increasing achievement gap, and the increasing poverty rates and isolation of black children are signs of how we value these children after they are born. It sends a message to the child and to the community, and it is devastating.

Where’s the billboard about that?

Attorneys and Plaintiffs to Hold Press Conference after Hearing at 12:30 EDT

ATLANTA – The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Clinic (NILC) and a coalition of civil rights groups will ask a federal judge in Atlanta, Ga. Monday, June 20 at 10 a.m. EDT to block the state’s draconian anti-immigrant law from taking effect July 1.

Inspired by Arizona’s notorious S.B. 1070, the law criminalizes Georgians who interact with undocumented individuals, authorizes police to demand “papers” demonstrating citizenship or immigration status during routine encounters and denies individuals without specific identification access to state facilities and services.

The coalition filed a motion for preliminary injunction June 8, charging that Georgia’s extreme law unlawfully interferes with federal power and authority over immigration matters, authorizes unreasonable seizures and arrests, restricts the constitutional right to travel freely throughout the United States and violates the separation of powers principles in the Georgia Constitution.

In addition to the ACLU  and NILC, the coalition representing the plaintiffs includes the ACLU of Georgia, Southern Poverty Law Center, the Asian Law Caucus, Federal & Hassan, LLP; Kuck Immigration Partners, LLC; and G. Brian Spears.

After the hearing, attorneys and plaintiffs will hold a press conference outside the courthouse.

WHAT:

Federal court hearing where ACLU, NILC and others will seek preliminary injunction against Georgia’s anti-immigration law. Press conference will feature plaintiffs and attorneys on the case, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, et. al. v. Deal, et. al.

WHO:

Omar Jadwat, staff attorney, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Karen Tumlin, managing attorney, NILC, will present arguments before U.S. District Court Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr.

Jadwat and Tumlin will be joined at the press conference by:

Adelina Nicholls, executive director, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights

Paul Bridges, mayor, Uvalda, Georgia

Helen Butler, Coalition for the People’s Agenda

Georgina Perez, DREAMActivist.org

PJ Edwards

Other coalition lawyers and plaintiffs, including Spanish-speaking individuals, will be available to answer questions.

WHEN:

Monday, June 20

After hearing concludes or approximately 12:30 p.m. EDT

WHERE:

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division

75 West Spring Street

Atlanta, Ga 30303

The House of Representatives recently passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains a dangerous proposal that would give this president — and all future presidents — the power to unilaterally take the U.S. to war wherever, whenever, and however they see fit.

Under this new war authority, the expanded “war on terror” would have no geographic boundaries, no time limits, and almost no limitations on the president.  It wouldn’t even require any harm or threat of harm to the U.S. 

It is now up to the Senate to stop this authorization of a worldwide war without end.

 The Senate Armed Services Committee will begin debating the NDAA this week, and Senator Chambliss’ vote will be crucial.  Tell Senator Chambliss: Oppose any law for a new worldwide war without end.

 President Obama has already come out in opposition to any authorization of an unending, unaccountable worldwide war.  But we cannot rest until this provision has been stripped from the bill once and for all.

 Please contact Senator Chambliss now and ask that he strongly oppose any law for a worldwide war without end.

Law Would Turn Georgia Into Police State and Invite Racial Profiling, Groups Say

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 2, 2011

ATLANTA – The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and a coalition of other civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit today challenging Georgia’s discriminatory anti-immigrant law passed last month and inspired by Arizona’s notorious SB 1070. The Georgia law authorizes police to demand “papers” demonstrating citizenship or immigration status during traffic stops, criminalizes Georgians who interact daily with undocumented individuals and makes it unjustifiably difficult for individuals without specific identification documents to access state facilities and services. The lawsuit charges that the extreme law endangers public safety, invites the racial profiling of Latinos, Asians and others who appear foreign to an officer and interferes with federal law.

Along with the ACLU and NILC, the coalition filing the lawsuit includes the ACLU of Georgia, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Asian Law Caucus.

“Georgia’s law is fundamentally un-American: we are not a ’show me your papers’ country, nor one that believes in making certain people ‘untouchables’ that others should be afraid to assist, house, or transport,” said Omar Jadwat, staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “The courts have blocked Arizona and Utah’s laws from going into effect. Georgia should be prepared for the same outcome.”

Georgia is the third state to have enacted laws emulating Arizona’s controversial and costly SB 1070, even though the Arizona law was blocked by the courts. Utah and Indiana passed similar laws earlier this year. After an ACLU and NILC lawsuit, a federal district court last month put Utah’s law on hold pending further review. The ACLU and NILC also filed a legal challenge to Indiana’s law.

 “Georgia’s HB 87 is out of step with fundamental values and the rule of law,” said Karen Tumlin, managing attorney with NILC. “It gives Georgians a reason to fear that they may be stripped of their constitutional rights simply because of the way they look or sound.  Laws that promote this kind of bare-bones discrimination are out of step with history and cannot be allowed to stand. We are confident that the Court will agree that unconstitutional attempts to drive a wedge between Georgian communities should not be allowed.” 

The lawsuit charges that Georgia’s law, HB 87, is unconstitutional because it unlawfully interferes with federal power and authority over immigration matters in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution; authorizes and requires unreasonable seizures and arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment; restricts the constitutional right to travel freely throughout the United States; and violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the U.S. Constitution by unlawfully discriminating against people who hold certain kinds of identity documents. 

“This extreme law criminalizes everyday folks who have daily interactions with undocumented individuals in their community, making people of faith and others vulnerable to arrest and detention while conducting acts of charity and kindness,” Said Debbie Seagraves, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia.

One of the plaintiffs in the case, Paul J. Edwards, is a devout Christian and a board member of a local faith group, who strongly believes in helping all individuals in his community regardless of their immigration status. As part of his religious commitment, Edwards transports people, including those who are undocumented, to places of worship and to locations that provide medical assistance. Under the Georgia law, Mr. Edwards would be subject to criminal liability for assisting, transporting and harboring these undocumented individuals.

Mary Bauer, legal director, Southern Poverty Law Center
 “This law undermines our core American values of fairness and equality,” said Mary Bauer, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “By perpetuating the hate rhetoric that has become commonplace among many elected officials, this law threatens the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike by encouraging racial profiling. Sadly, too, it places Georgia on the wrong side of history.”

Another plaintiff, Paul Bridges, is a long-time supporter of the Republican Party and is the mayor of Uvalda, Georgia, a town of approximately 600 people in Montgomery County.  Because Mr. Bridges speaks Spanish and is a well-known presence in the community, he often assists with interpretation in schools, doctors’ offices, court and other settings.  He also provides transportation to undocumented individuals so they can go to church, the grocery store, doctors’ appointments and soccer tournaments in nearby towns. If the Georgia law goes into effect, Mr. Bridges and the undocumented individuals traveling with him will be at risk of criminal prosecution.

 “Georgia is home to one of the fastest growing Asian populations,” said Sin Yen Ling, senior staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus. ”This law encourages racial profiling of Asian Americans and immigrants, and must be struck down.”

The lawsuit was filed today in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on behalf of civil rights, labor, social justice and faith-based organizations, including Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, Service Employees International Union, the Southern Regional Joint Board of Workers United, Alterna, Coalition of Latino Leaders, Task Force for the Homeless, DreamActivist.org, Instituto de Mexico, Coalition for the People’s Agenda and the Asian American Legal Advocacy Center; individually named plaintiffs who would be subject to harassment or arrest under the law; and a class of similarly situated people.

Attorneys on the case include Jadwat, Andre Segura, Elora Mukherjee, Cecillia D. Wang and Kate Desormeau of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project; Tumlin, Linton Joaquin, Nora A. Preciado, Melissa S. Keaney, Tanya Broder and Jonathan Blazer of the National Immigration Law Center; Bauer, Andrew H. Turner, Samuel Brooke, Naomi Tsu, Michelle R. Lapointe and Daniel Werner of the Southern Poverty Law Center; Chara Fisher Jackson and Azadeh N. Shahshahani of the ACLU of Georgia; G. Brian Spears; Ling of the Asian Law Caucus; R. Keegan Federal, Jr. of Federal & Hassan, LLP.; and Charles H. Kuck and Danielle M. Conley of Kuck Immigration Partners, LLC.

Additional information about the case, including a copy of the complaint, is available online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/georgia-latino-alliance-human-rights-et-al-v-deal

The Georgia Legislature, with the help of the Legislative Reapportionment Services Offices, will be redrawing Georgia’s congressional and statewide legislative district lines this summer. The process has begun and this is your opportunity to get involved. The ACLU will be hosting an interactive workshop in Atlanta for the purpose of educating Georgians on how the redistricting process works, understanding the data, and how to effectively communicate valuable information to state lawmakers to ensure fair and effective political representation to address the needs of your community.

TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 2011
5:30 P.M. – 7:30 P.M.
The workshop is free and open to the public.

Auburn Avenue Research Library
101 Auburn Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30303
(404) 730-4001

For more information and to RSVP,
contact Nancy Abudu at
nabudu@aclu.org or 404-523-2721.

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