Freeing Illegal Immigrants Facing Deportation in Georgia

Under new guidelines the Obama administration announced last week, Homeland Security said ICE “is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens, recent border crossers and egregious immigration law violators, such as those who have been previously removed from the U.S. The agency exercises prosecutorial discretion, on a case-by-case basis, as necessary to focus resources on these priorities.”
Following the new guidelines, Homeland Security Department officials confirmed that Pedro Morales, 19, of Dalton and Luis “Ricky” Hernandez, 18, of Calhoun had been let out of the Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia and their cases dismissed yesterday. 
While critics of the new guidelines say the Obama administration is ignoring federal immigration laws by freeing illegal immigrants, Charles Kuck, the teens' attorney, and the past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (and whom I had the pleasure to know as my Professor in law school and I for whom I have a great respect), said ICE’s decision to free his clients indicates “there is a return of some semblance of sanity to our [immigration] system.”
Please click on the title to read the entire article published in Atlanta Journal Constitution on August 23, 2011. 

Georgia's Farm Land Jobs Crisis

Georgia's Governor Deal proposed that the 11,000 openings — which, he suggested, should be filled with some of the state's 100,000 ex-convicts, about 25% of whom are unemployed.

However, a few weeks ago, in a documentary of a local television station, several ex-convicts and the reporters were trying to work for a day in the cucumber fields and they declared it was one of the most difficult jobs they have ever done. So how realistic is governor's plan to protect Georgia's agriculture industry from the predictable effects  of enacting one of the harshest immigration law in the nation, (the law took effect July 1, 2011),  is yet to be seen. Please click on the title to read the entire article from Time Magazine.

Other States Follow the "State Immigration Bills" Trend

According to American Immigration Lawyers Association: "South Carolina bill (SB 20) has been signed into law by Gov. Nicki Haley on June 27, 2011. SB 20 authorizes police officers to investigate immigration status on routine stops and mandates the use of E-Verify. The bill is set to take effect on January 1, 2012."

In Georgia, according to the same source, "A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on key provisions of HB87.  Judge Thrash blocked the parts of the law that tried to turn local cops into immigration officers, and that made it a crime to transport, harbor, or induce an undocumented immigrant.   This is a huge defeat for Governor Deal and Rep. Matt Ramsey, the bill’s sponsor."