State officials confirmed Friday that they have started investigating the scope of Georgia’s agricultural labor shortages following complaints that the state’s new immigration enforcement law is scaring away migrant farmworkers.

Gov. Nathan Deal asked for the investigation Thursday in a letter to Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black. Deal wants Black’s department to survey farmers about the impact Georgia’s immigration law, House Bill 87, is having on their industry and report findings by June 10.

The labor shortages have sent farmers scrambling to find other workers for their fall harvests. Others are making hard choices about leaving some fruits and vegetables to wilt on their fields.

Proponents of HB 87 say people who are in the country legally have nothing to worry about concerning the new law. They hope the law that takes effect July 1 will deter illegal immigrants from coming here and burdening the state’s taxpayer-funded public schools, hospitals and jails.

The Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association has estimated the labor shortages afflicting South Georgia counties could put as much as $300 million in crops at risk. But the full extent of the damage won’t be known until after July, when farmers have finished harvesting their summer crops, including blueberries, watermelons and sweet corn, said Charles Hall, the association’s executive director. When that damage is tabulated, Hall said, it will help farmers decide whether they should plant less for future harvests.

Farmers say the Hispanic migrant workers they depend on to pick their fruits and vegetables are bypassing Georgia to work in other states. The workers are concerned they will be harassed or jailed here following the passage of HB 87, the farmers said.

Bill Brim said between 75 and 100 Hispanic workers he depends on didn’t show up for work this year at his 4,500-acre farm in Tifton, causing him to lose some of his vegetable harvests. Now Brim, who raises cucumbers, eggplant, squash tomatoes, watermelon and other fruits and vegetables, is considering cutting back on production and building more houses to shelter laborers he could get through a federal guest-worker program he already participates in.

“We have to pick and choose what we pick,” said Brim, a board member and past president of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. “We have to skip over fields, not just because of labor but because of dry weather, too.”

Deal wrote Thursday in a letter to Black that “many farmers have raised concerns about the availability of an adequate, stable workforce for Georgia’s production agricultural industry.”

“Knowing the strong demand for farm labor will continue through the summer months, I request that you assess how this legislation is impacting agricultural operations,” he wrote in the letter, according to a copy obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The governor’s office provided the AJC with access to an electronic survey the state is using to measure the extent of the labor shortage. The survey doesn’t mention HB 87, but it does ask farmers how many more workers they need, how long they will need them, what they would pay per hour, and what they are doing to recruit employees.

Deal signed HB 87 into law this month. Partly patterned after a law Arizona adopted last year, Georgia’s measure empowers police to investigate the immigration status of certain suspects. And it penalizes people who transport or harbor illegal immigrants or encourage them to come here.

Asked to what extent this new law is causing the labor shortage, a spokesman for Deal said the governor supports federal guest-worker programs that allow farmers to legally bring noncitizens here to do seasonal farm work.

“We have always said we don’t make federal laws, but we are subject to them,” said Brian Robinson, a spokesman for Deal. “Before HB 87, it was illegal to hire someone who was in the country illegally.”

Black was not available for comment Friday. But his spokesman, Arty Schronce, said the commissioner did not want to speculate on what is causing the labor shortages. Schronce said his agency is willing to help publicize state job fairs and is encouraging farmers to share their job listings with the state Labor Department.

“We are focused on trying to find a solution,” Schronce said.

Black and Labor Commissioner Mark Butler were considering issuing a joint statement about the labor shortage, but there are no plans to do that now, Schronce said, because the problem has been reported in the news media.

Butler issued a statement Friday saying his and Black’s agencies are “working together to provide the workforce where needed to the agribusiness community.” Asked for specifics, Labor Department spokesman Sam Hall said: “We are still determining what we are going to do. … It will depend on what the necessity is.” Hall said Butler does not have enough information yet to determine to what extent HB 87 is impacting farm labor.

Jason Berry, the farm manager at Blueberry Farms of Georgia in Baxley, said a third of the 120 workers who were needed to pick highbush blueberries this spring did not show up for work even after the farm offered $50 signing bonuses. The farm also offered weekly $25 bonuses to people just for showing up for work.

Most of those who didn’t show up for work are Mexican and Guatemalan migrant workers who were fearful of the climate produced by HB 87 in Georgia, Berry said. The farm lost about 10 percent of its spring blueberry crop because of the labor shortage, Berry estimated.

“There is so much fear stricken into all of these people that a lot of them refused to come to Georgia,” Berry said. “They were inferring that because that law was passed immigration [agents were] going to be after them hard this year. They would think they could possibly get deported.”

Staff writer Matt Kempner contributed to this article.

Source: AJC.com, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Governor asks state to probe farm labor shortages” by Jeremy Redmon, 27 May 2011.

U.S. watermelon fields are pumping out all-time-high volumes of product this season. Growers of other commodities in Mexico, Texas, Florida and Georgia have produced bumper crops as well. But the problem is there are not enough workers on hand to harvest those crops.

For years, labor has been one of the produce industry’s thorniest issues, but it has lately become priority one in the Southeast. Some Florida farmers this spring left crops unpicked or opened their fields to the public due to a lack of workers.

Now Georgia growers are concerned that the same labor shortage Florida faced earlier in the season will crop up in that state as well.

What growers — particularly those in Florida and Georgia — want to know is: Where are all the workers?

“That’s really the question we’re trying to answer, trying to find out exactly what’s going on,” Charles Hall of the Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Association in LaGrange told The Produce News May 17. “Some of the early crops, we’ve had workers. Some growers have had some [workers] but now aren’t going to get any the next two-three weeks. It’s going be kind of a wild ballgame. It could be a real train wreck if we don’t have crews show up.”

No one is exactly sure where the workers have gone, but there are three popular theories. One is that the U.S. economy has been so lousy the last few years many illegal immigrants simply packed up and moved home. Another is that crews in states with pending — or support for — anti-immigrant legislation, like Georgia and Florida, are simply laying low until the hubbub dies down. A third is that crews in states that are toughening their stands on immigration have simply moved on to more welcoming climes.

Wendy Fink-Weber, director of communications for the Western Growers Association in Irvine, CA, said, “I haven’t heard at this point of any shortages” in the states the association represents (California and Arizona).

In fact, Ms. Fink-Weber said that Arizona growers had no labor shortage even in the wake up of the infamous SB 1070, which toughened the state’s approach to immigration (though much of that legislation has since been overturned).

Ms. Fink-Webber suggested that an economy that is again starting to move just a bit could be siphoning off some ag workers to more lucrative jobs in other industries, such as construction.

“That played into the labor situation quite a bit” before the recent recession, she said. “We certainly anticipate especially when the economy comes back that we’ll see those days again. We know it will happen again; it’s happened before. We need a legal workforce, but with no legislation coming — and it has to be federal — with no resolution, states are trying to fix some of that on their own and a lot of times that ends up in court. Labor still is the number one issue for our members, there’s no doubt about that. But I was with a number of our members and our board of directors last week in Washington, DC, for our annual Capitol Hill visits, and while immigration reform was the topic, I didn’t hear anybody talking about their fear of a labor shortage yet. Yet.”

It would seem there likely were no Georgians or Floridians in that contingent. This spring, the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill that would have allowed state law-enforcement officials to force anyone in Florida to produce proof of citizenship on demand. A similar bill stalled in the Florida Senate, but the legislation kicked around until the end of Florida’s main spring harvest season and will likely pop back up in some form during the next legislative session. Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal recently signed into law HB 87, which authorizes law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of certain suspects and to detain them if they are in the country illegally. It also penalizes those who knowingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants and makes it a felony to present false documents or information when applying for a job.

The new law in Georgia goes into effect July 1, and “What we’re hearing now is crews that are normally in Florida and would be coming into Georgia to work, they’re not coming to Georgia and they’re saying it’s because of the new immigration law,” Mr. Hall said. “The work crews are just concerned about coming to Georgia, so they’re bypassing Georgia and going on up the East Coast.”

In mid-May, Mr. Hall sent GFVA members a survey asking about their labor concerns. He anonymously shared the comments from one e-mail he received in reply with The Produce News. It read: “Yes, we’re experiencing a shortage of workers. Typically, we would need 180; now we’re lucky if we can get 80. We’re talking about which part of our fields we can stop picking and take the losses. Some of our workers came in and said, ‘The big man in Atlanta signed the immigration bill, and we’re leaving Georgia.’”

Mr. Hall’s survey is part of a larger task with which the Georgia Department of Agriculture has been charged as part of HB 87. The new law requires the department to tackle the immigration issue and look for solutions.

Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Gary Black said, “We’ve been charged with a very interesting opportunity with the passage of the immigration reform bill here in Georgia, requiring the department to conduct a study about the potential guest worker program and a study to recommend what type of revisions are needed in the H-2A visa program at the federal level. So we’ve got members of our team looking at different parts of that challenge right now. I fully expect that to be a very academic piece, and we’re going to cover lots of different kinds of data so we can really explain this issue to lawmakers and the rest of Georgia. The answer to agricultural needs in this area just can’t be summed up in a sound bite. I’m thankful the legislature had enough confidence in our department to give us this task, and we’re going to be very thorough and solution-oriented. We have to report back to the general assembly January 1. We’ve got a really great opportunity to produce a scholarly study that will be helpful to the process. It’s a two-fold thing: find a solution for producers, but also use this platform to educate the other 9-something-million Georgians about how this issue works, how it fits in.”

It is clear that the H-2A program is flawed. The law requires grower-shippers to give first dibs on jobs to domestic workers. The problem is there are very few willing domestic workers, even in the worst economic times since the Great Depression.

“One [grower], I saw the documents where he hired 412 domestic workers between January and October, and none of them lasted more than a week,” Mr. Hall said. “Either they didn’t come back to work after they applied and were told to come back, or they did come back to work and lasted a day or two. You can talk to pretty much any H-2A employer and that’s the same story.”

That is despite the fact that H-2A workers make well above the federal minimum wage. H-2A salaries start at $9.12 an hour, “and they can make better than that on a piece-rate,” Mr. Hall said. “Some are making $12-$13-$14 an hour based on production.”

So the real issue, Mr. Hall said, is “how to craft a bill or legislation that will work. There’s a component in the U.S. that feels the best thing we could do is ship everybody back home. That’s almost physically impossible and really I don’t think most of those folks realize that if we could get everybody to leave there would be a tremendous amount of services that will go unfilled because we don’t have people working. I’m not in favor of people being here in this country illegally, but you’ve also got to have a way to provide services at hotels and restaurants and on the farm and in construction. It’s just a big problem. I don’t have the answer to it. There are too many diverse opinions on it, and nobody really wants to belly up and make it work. I wish we could solve it, but right now people are having to just deal with it the best they can.”

Growers are finding different ways to deal with the shortages. Some are leaving crops in the fields. Others are relying on staffing services. Still others are reaping the benefits of years of good employee relations.

“Good labor is hard to find, especially seasonal labor,” said Arnold Mack of McMelon Inc., a year-round producer of watermelons, onions and potatoes headquartered in Lake Wales, FL, and growing elsewhere in that state and in Georgia. “A high percentage of our labor force works for us all year long. We do experience some problems when we need additional labor during our harvest season but have managed to work through it. So you might say we are better off than most companies mainly because we can take our labor north with us each year then come back to Florida in the fall for the planting season.”

Brent Harrison of Al Harrison Co. in Nogales, AZ, said that his company now outsources labor to a private provider. “This crew travels our domestic program and does the cutting, harvesting, packing and shipping, and they do it consistently and they know what our needs are for our customers.”

Bob Gibson of Gibson Produce Co. in Vero Beach, FL, has had the same crew virtually intact for the past decade. “I’m fine on labor. I’ve had the same crews for the last 10 years, the same guys I’ve always had. Labor’s not an issue for me,” Mr. Gibson said. “You just treat them right and make sure they’ve got work every year and they always come back.”

Source: TheProduceNews.com, “Where have all the workers gone? Theories abound as crops go unpicked” by Chip Carter, 23 May 2011.

“Illegal immigration is already illegal in Georgia” was Georgia Governor Deal’s opening line to a press statement on signing HB 87 into law yesterday. So the chuckles and snorts from his side of the issue began as they enjoyed a “Duh!” moment. Meanwhile, those opposed to and most affected by the law were stupefied for a moment by the truism and had to shake themselves to break out of the very tight circular argument he had just spun.

Clever tactic in a way—get yourself on the laughing side with a statement that nobody could sanely contradict, leave your opponent to be laughed at. Almost eradicates the need for a real argument to defend your position—almost. The message—“this law entails no significant changes to get so worked up about” or “this law is more the remedy to an earlier oversight than anything new”—is a slap in the face. Because for a lot of people this law does change everything.

This is not going to turn into a long-winded political argument. Others have argued this case much better than I could. Georgia immigration attorney Charles Kuck expresses the true effects of this law here. The fact that the rhetoric of it all can overpower the strength of an actual argument is my point. Just saying.

Georgia now joins Arizona in passing immigration bills that sacrifice individual liberty for the sake of enforcing immigration legislation, most importantly, bad immigration legislation. Our immigration system is broken, highly complicated, outdated, and often underpinned by racist or xenophobic attitudes. HB-87 only reinforces it.

Like Arizona’a immigration reform last year, AZ-1070, HB-87 allows law enforcement officers to unreasonably search individuals on their immigration status based on “reasonable suspicion” even during routine traffic stops (Article V). This undue ability challenges the Constitution, giving undue power to an individual’s subjective judgement. It is meant, according to Governor Nathan Deal, to “protect employers, taxpayers while upholding the rule of law.” Deal fails to see the waste of Georgia’s money when the Department of Justice files suit against this law, as they have already done against Arizona, or the fact that this redirects our law enforcement from dealing with real pressing issues in Georgia, not to mention the government’s failure to address our state’s failing education system or economic recovery. This law only creates more opportunities for corruption and the abuse of minorities instead of protecting them, and it distracts from the real issue at hand here: the flawed, out-dated system of American immigration.

President Obama’s policy speech this week in El Paso, Texas highlights a new blueprint for building a 21st century immigration system including strengthening restrictions on unscrupulous business practices employing (and often endangering) illegal workers, investing in smarter, more efficient, and safer ways to protect our borders, and celebrating those who pursue higher education so that they may contribute to American progress.

“And it was a reminder of a simple idea, as old as America itself:  E pluribus unum.  Out of many, one.  We define ourselves as a nation of immigrants — a nation that welcomes those willing to embrace America’s ideals and America’s precepts.  That’s why millions of people, ancestors to most of us, braved hardship and great risk to come here — so they could be free to work and worship and start a business and live their lives in peace and prosperity.  The Asian immigrants who made their way to California’s Angel Island.  The German and Scandinavians who settled across the Midwest.  The waves of Irish, and Italian, and Polish, and Russian, and Jewish immigrants who leaned against the railing to catch their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty…

That’s the promise of this country — that anyone can write the next chapter in our story.  It doesn’t matter where you come from — (applause) — it doesn’t matter where you come from; it doesn’t matter what you look like; it doesn’t matter what faith you worship.  What matters is that you believe in the ideals on which we were founded; that you believe that all of us are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.  (Applause.)  All of us deserve our freedoms and our pursuit of happiness.  In embracing America, you can become American.  That is what makes this country great.  That enriches all of us.”

It would make sense that the cheapest and most effective way to bolster enforcement of immigration legislation is to strengthen the legislation to enforce, and it would make sense for that legislation to be rooted in the culture and history of our nation and reflect American values. What doesn’t make sense is 50 individual policies created by state legislatures that counteract a cohesive, national policy.

We have the opportunity to build a stronger nation, and legislation like HB-87 have sincerely crippled it by alienating members of communities and undermining the greatest trait of America: out of many, one.

Contact Governor Deal to request real immigration reform, not destructive enforcement policy. Sign the petition supporting the DREAM Act. Join the national discussion on immigration reform.

En la tarde del martes pasado el juez federal Clark Waddoups bloqueó la ley HB 497 de Utah. La ley permite que los agentes de policia puedan verificar el estatus migratorio de cada persona arrestada. También pueden cuestionar a pasajeros de vehiculos que son detenidos por cualquier infracción. La ley prohíbe a los propietarios arrendar hogares, apartamentos, u otros establecimientos a personas sin estatus migratorio. Finalmente, la ley obliga que cada empleador se inscriba en el programa federal E-Verify para verificar el estado migratorio de todos sus trabajadores.

Los opositores de la ley HB 497 opinan que la ley es inconstitucional. Por ejemplo, la Unión Americana de Derechos Civiles (ACLU) argumenta que la ley viola derechos fundamentales de las personas.

Propuestas antiinmigrantes como la HB 497 de Utah, la SB 1070 de Arizona, la HB 87 de Georgia, y otras propuestas en Indiana y Florida son el resultado de la falta de una reforma migratoria completa. Ayer, el presidente Obama dió un discurso en El Paso, Texas, para apoyar una reforma federal que legalizaría a inmigrantes sin estatus migratorio. Sugiere que tal reforma exija que cada inmigrante sin estatus migratorio page fianzas, aprenda el inglés, y solicite estatus legalmente.

Vocabulario y Gramática

juez: (m.) judge
cada: (adj.) each
pasajero: (m.) passenger
propietario: (m.) owner (of a building)
arrendar: (infinitive) rent/lease
establecimiento: (m.) property, an establishmente
viola: violates (present indicative of violar)
falta: (f.) lack (of)
discurso: (m.) speech
sugiere: suggests (third person sing. of sugerir)
exija: requires (third person sing., subjunctive of exijir)
derecho: (m.) right

—————
Fuentes

Juez federal bloqueó ley antiinmigrante de Utah, Univision.com
Judge blocks enforcement of Utah immigration law, CNN.com

The U.S. Human Rights Network, a nonprofit organization based in Atlanta, has canceled plans to hold its biannual conference in Atlanta this year. A spokesperson for the organization says it was expecting more than 600 people from across the country to attend the meeting in December.

The meeting will be relocated to another state because of Georgia’s House Bill 87. A new location has not yet been selected. Check out more on the story from the AJC

The Cedar Shoals students are experiencing firsthand the general anti-immigrant climate these policies are helping create. One student, a senior, expressed profound dismay in having limited options after high school because of the Regents policy. “We can’t be like other students who have papers, who are excited to go to UGA and other universities,” she said. “You just feel left out, especially now that I’m a senior and everybody’s asking what college you’re going to.” The students also attested to their families’ fear of leaving their homes because of the possibility of police stopping them. The practice will only continue and grow if HB 87 goes into effect.

AFER formed after several students coordinated wearing T-shirts in protest of the Regents ban and HB 87. One student held a Mexican flag over a hallway from a floor above. In the end, about three or four students were suspended. Despite this setback, the students have decided to organize a rally and reach out to their peers and other community members.

The Board of Regents passed Policy 4.1.6 out of concern that undocumented students were taking spots from legal residents and U.S. citizens at the state’s five research institutions. There are a total of 501 undocumented students in the entire University System of Georgia, and they pay out-of-state tuition.

HB 87 will bring disastrous consequences to the Athens community. Empowering local police officers and sheriffs to act as ICE agents, the law will tear apart families and make it more difficult for immigrants without documentation to secure jobs to support their families. Many immigrant families have both documented and undocumented members. HB 87 also criminalizes allies who aid immigrants by giving them rides or places to stay. Our families and economies will be strained by this bill.

We urge all concerned community members to attend the rally and stand in solidarity with AFER as it fights for justice. As one student organizer said, “A lot of times we don’t stand up for ourselves in school. But now we do care. Because we don’t want to feel like we can’t stand up for ourselves because you’re Latino. We’re doing this to let people know that they shouldn’t be scared, that we should stand up for ourselves.”

Join the students at the University of Georgia Arch in downtown Athens, GA, at 6pm, Friday, April 29, 2011.

The AIRC is a community-based group encompassing many religious-, civic- and university-based organizations that are working collectively to support and organize the immigrant community in Athens in the face of discriminatory laws. Our groups include Dignidad Inmigrante en Athens, Georgia Students for Public Higher Education, the Economic Justice Coalition, Casa de Amistad, Amnesty International @ UGA, Ven Peru, the Battery, the UGA Living Wage Coalition, and Athens Professional Services.

Find our Facebook event at http://tinyurl.com/sisepuedeathens

Ouafae Azhari (foreground) shouts out as other demonstrators protest Georgia House Bill 87 outside the Capitol on the final day of the 2011 legislative session. Photo credit: Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com

The state’s agricultural commissioner said Monday that he will soon begin a thorough study of whether Georgia can legally create its own guest-worker program.

Agricultural Commissioner Gary Black said his department will consult officials in Utah, where the state Legislature passed a bill this year that would allow illegal immigrants to get permits to work in that state.

Black’s study would be required under House Bill 87, omnibus immigration enforcement legislation passed by the General Assembly last week. Gov. Nathan Deal has said he plans to sign the bill.

HB 87 also would require Black’s department to study the impact of immigration on the state’s agricultural industry and “the need for reform” of the federal H-2A guest-worker program, which HB 87 calls “cumbersome and flawed.” Under HB 87, his report would be due to state lawmakers and the governor by Jan. 1.

“We do have colleagues in Utah and we will look forward to asking them how they think that is going to work for them,” Black said of the guest-worker program. “Just how that interfaces with the federal program is certainly a question that is out there.”

Black, a Republican, sidestepped questions about whether he supports or opposes HB 87, saying “my job is to be commissioner of agriculture, so I will leave my opinions out of it.”

Source: AJC.com, The Atlanta Journal -Constitution, “Georgia considers its own guest worker program” by Jeremy Redmon, 18 Apr 2011.

Law would require verification of workers’ status

MOULTRIE [GA] — Georgia produce growers could spend a lot more time on paperwork and find it difficult to get workers to pick their crops under the state’s new immigration bill.

The legislation, HB 87, would, among other things, require many growers to use the E-Verify system to ensure workers’ legal status.

The law, approved late Thursday night on the last day of the legislative session, would not affect smaller operations. Producers with fewer than 10 employees on Jan. 1 of each year would be exempt, regardless of the number of farm workers they hire during harvest season.

Gov. Nathan Deal has not signed the bill but has indicated that he will do so.

Larger producers also would be less impacted because many of those hire guest workers under the federal H2A program, said Charles Hall, executive director of the Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association.

However, that program currently cannot meet the needs of all of the state’s growers, he said.

“If all the growers went to H2A for all their employees, it could not handle it,” he said.

About 7,000 farm workers used in produce are hired through the federal program, while about 85,000 workers are hired in the state annually, he said.

Hall said it is too early to determine if worker availability will take a significant hit.

The law likely will face legal challenges, as did a similar law passed last year in Arizona.

That is one uncertainty, Hall said. The law also does not take effect until July 2013, and it requires the Georgia Department of Agriculture to study the potential impact and make recommendations that could make it more farmer-friendly.

“I really wish they had done that study first and then looked into how they wanted to do immigration reform,” Hall said. “I’m sure we’ll have some opportunity to provide some input into this study.”

There is a possibility that growers could have insufficient workers to harvest the perishable fruit and vegetable crops, he said.

“The situation with fruit and vegetable growers, you’ve got a much heavier labor force because you hand-pick,” he said. “For fresh produce you can’t mechanically pick.

“From a normal operational standpoint, we would have preferred not to go to this until there is a reasonable federal program to provide the workers. Unfortunately there are not many local workers who are willing to work in the fields.”

Colquitt County extension agent Glenn Beard said the law also will mean more headaches in the paperwork required to meet the requirements of the E-Verify program.

“You’re going to have to have one person just doing this,” he said. “This is going to be more expense for anybody who uses foreign labor. This is going to be an additional expense and added risk. If they don’t do everything just right they might get fined for trying to do the right thing.”

Source: MoultrieObserver.com, “Immigration Bill Could Hit Farmers” by Alan Mauldin, The Moultrie Observer, 15 Apr 2011.

La ley HB 87 es parecida a la SB 1070 de Arizona, la cual ha sido suspendida temporalmente por jueces federales ya que la consideran inconstitucional. Al igual que la ley SB 1070, la iniciativa HB 87 daría permiso a agentes de policía cuestionar el estatus migratorio si hay “causa probable” al detener inmigrantes que cometan infracciones menores, por ejemplo.

De acuerdo al consulado mexicano, la propuesta migratoria HB 87 no reconoce las contribuciones de los inmigrantes en los Estados Unidos. La nueva ley podría violar a los derechos humanos de los inmigrantes quienes residen en el estado de Georgia. En efecto, la ley convertiría a los inmigrantes sin estatus migratorio de la noche a la mañana.

Además, la HB 87 no aceptaría a documentos otorgados por gobiernos extranjeros como identificaciones validas (documentos como la Matrícula Consular mexicana).

El cónsul de México en Georgia aseguró que seguirá asistiendo, apoyando, y protegiendo a migrantes mexicanos para asegurar sus derechos fundamentales.

Vocabulario/Gramática

es parecida: is similar (to)
Al igual que: Just like
de la noche a la mañana: overnight (idiom)
apoyando: supporting
asegurar: secure
derechos: (m. pl.) rights
                                               
Fuentes

México critica iniciativa migratoria de Georgia, El Universal

With the Legislature leaving early for a 10-day break, illegal immigration is one of those issues left in the lurch.

HB 87 failed to reach the Senate floor for a vote, after substantial committee changes. Which means no conference committee action is possible until the General Assembly returns on April 11.

But signs have been tossed around this week, indicating that we may be headed toward a resolution of the debate’s trickiest proposition.

The argument in the state Capitol has never focused on giving local law enforcement the power to ask for proof of U.S. citizenship. That has always been a given among the Republican lawmakers in charge.

The meat of the conflict has been over how to bring pressure on Georgia businesses to stop hiring illegal immigration. Agricultural concerns have all but said that crops won’t be able to make it out of the field without that cheap and plentiful labor force.

HB 87 originally contained penalties for businesses that don’t enroll in the federal E-Verify program, which ascertains whether a potential hire is a legal U.S. resident. A Senate version originally required businesses to use E-Verify, but included no penalties.

But when the Senate Judiciary Committee made its changes to HB 87 this week, my AJC colleague Jeremy Redmon caught this:

The committee added a provision that says employers would not be eligible for certain state income tax breaks unless they use a federal work authorization program called E-Verify.

A business – or a farm — wouldn’t be forced to close if it chooses not to screen its workers, but it would take a tax hit. An incentive to comply, rather than a directive.

Another hint came from Gov. Nathan Deal who, in a quick interview this week with Denis O’Hayer of WABE (90.1FM), addressed federal programs to bring in foreign workers. Said Deal:

”I’ve always maintained that the state of Georgia, like many states, could use a very good guest worker program.

Unfortunately, that has not been forthcoming from Congress, and it is something that only Congress can initiate. States don’t have the authority to do that, because we don’t control the ultimate issue of [the] right to enter this country.

“So I will be one of those who will continue to urge those at the federal level to pass a meaningful guest worker program that would help the concerns of our agriculture community in the state of Georgia.”

O’Hayer asked if Deal thought the H-2 visa program now in place works. Replied the governor:

“The H-2B is a quota system, and the quota is rapidly consumed. The H-2A program has become very difficult and cumbersome, and for small producers is not really an effective program for them, because of all the complications and requirements of the program…”

One could interpret the governor’s remarks as saying that current federal worker programs can’t supply the labor needed by Georgia farmers if the state adopts a hard-fisted approach.

O’Hayer also interviewed illegal immigration activist D.A. King, who said this:

”The concept that the H-2A visa is somehow inconvenient for the farmers in south Georgia really means it’s too expensive to hire legal labor in Georgia….I am astounded at the governor’s remarks. We have plenty of guest workers in this country.”

On a related note, immigration lawyer Charles Kuck, who calls himself the “token Republican” on the governing board of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, has been reading through illegal immigration legislation now lodged in the House.

Kuck says he’s found a new provision that he says would permit those convicted of harboring or transporting illegal aliens to be convicted on hearsay evidence. Check it out here.

Read more at: Blogs.AJC.com, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Your morning jolt: Shifting from stick to carrot on illegal immigration” by Jim Galloway, 1 Apr 2011.

(APN) ATLANTA — Over 8,000 activists rallied outside the State Capitol on Thursday, March 24, 2011, to show their outrage and disgust over Georgia’s Arizona-type immigration bills.

As previously reported by Atlanta Progressive News, legislation, HB 87, has already passed the State House.  A similar bill, SB 40, has also passed the State Senate.

While the vast majority of protesters at the Capitol were Hispanic, opposition to the bills came from a wide spectrum of constituents including immigrants, students, religious groups, peace groups, veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, Asian groups, GLBTQI activists, labor, artists, musicians, business owners, elected officials, and others.

“Thousands of Georgia immigrants and allies came together today to say no more to racial profiling and no more to the dangerous and unfair targeting of immigrant communities and communities of color,” Adelina Nicholls, Director of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) and one of the rally’s central organizers, said in a statement.  The business community, as well as the rally participants, hope to convince Governor Nathan Deal to veto the bill when it comes to his desk

“It makes no sense that Governor Deal seems intent on supporting legislation that will bankrupt the state – both morally and financially.  We call on him to veto such misguided policy,” Nicholls said.

There were various estimates of how many people participated in the rally.  Based on an analysis of the square footage on Washington Street in front of the Capitol by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper’s Political Insider blog, and based upon the fact that activists were packed into the space like sardines, APN concludes there were over 8,000 activists present.  Capitol police put the estimate at about 5,000, while Republican legislators said it was only a few hundred.

State Reps. Matt Ramsey (R-Peachtree City), Rich Golick (R-Smyrna), Alex Atwood (R-Brunswick), Allen Peake (R-Macon), Christian Coomer (R-Cartersville), and Ed Setzler (R-Acworth) released the following joint statement: “Today several hundred supporters of illegal immigration descended on the Georgia State Capitol to rail against legislation aimed at enforcing the rule of law in Georgia.”

“In contrast to these angry sign waiving activists, there are millions of Georgia citizens working and raising their families, who no longer are willing to accept the loss of job opportunities to the nearly 500,000 illegal aliens in our state or to subsidize their presence with their hard earned tax dollars.  We are the voice for these common sense Georgians and this kind of protest only bolsters our resolve to see House Bill 87 signed into law,” they wrote.

Opponents of the bills are concerned that it will have a negative impact of Georgia’s economic growth and fear it will lead to racial profiling of immigrants andothers.

“We want to make the Capitol walls tremble, so we can send a message to the legislators and the Governor that what they are doing is not right,” State Rep. Pedro Marin (D-Norcross) told APN in an English translation of his speech to the protesters.

The crowd enthusiastically shouted, “Si, Se Puede,” or “Yes It Can Be Done,” after every speaker. The Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, the Georgia-based folk rock music duo, sang “Shame on You” to loud applause from the rally.

Lyrics from the song include: “Let’s go road block trippin in the middle of the night up in Gainesville town// There’ll be blue lights flashin down the long dirt road when they ask us to step out// They say we be looking for illegal immigrants can we check your car// I say you know it’s funny I think we were on the same boat back in 1694.”

Both Georgia bills authorize all law enforcement officials to investigate the immigration status of anyone they have “probable cause” to believe has committed a criminal offense, including traffic violations.
Other provisions mandate vehicle confiscation, fines and/or jail time for transporting an “illegal alien” in a motor vehicle.  [Good luck to MARTA on this one.]

HB 87 allows Georgia residents to sue state and local government agencies they believe are not enforcing the law.  This could lead to a vigilante environment with anti-immigration activists suing every governmental agency in the state.

“We will stand and fight until we kill these vicious anti-immigration bills.  The business community understands the bills will kill Georgia’s economy.  Georgia cannot operate without the immigrant work force,” State Sen. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta) said.

Some of the reasons expressed by State Rep. Ramsey for drafting the bill include the belief that undocumented immigrants are using public benefits.  Ramsey cites the cost of illegal immigration in Georgia at 2.5 billion dollars per year.

“Ramsey is unwilling to acknowledge that the presence of undocumented workers and their families, contributed more than $400 million in direct taxes and more than $10 billion in economic output,” Charles Kuck, an immigration expert, states on his blog.

According to the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, food stamps, social security, supplemental security income, temporary assistance for needy families, full-scope Medicaid, Medicare premium free part A, PeachCare for children, and HUD public housing and section 8 programs are simply not available to undocumented immigrants by existing law.

Undocumented immigrants do qualify for K-12 public education and emergency medial care.

The 2.5 billion dollar statistic comes from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which, as previously reported by APN, is considered a hate group with ties to White supremacist groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

“We are here for two reasons today.  We deserve and demand dignity and respect for without our immigrant community Georgia does not work.  It is the immigrant labor, in the agriculture industry, that produces 68 billion dollars for Georgia,” Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director, Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, said.  ”It is time to move past politics and division – time to create jobs instead of killing jobs,” Gonzalez said.

Estimates suggest that implementing HB 87 could cost over 400 million dollars in diverted law enforcement resources, detention beds, and foster care cost.

To separate children from their families is unconscionable, activists argue, and will cause psychological trauma and damage to those children.

Arizona so far has lost 140 million dollars as a result of its SB 1070.  The Center for American Progress expects that loss to increase to 750 million.

State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) was a man of only one word: “Boycott!”  The crowd screamed back boycott, Si Se Puede, boycott!

Often overlooked in the immigration debate is the influence of the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in lobbying elected officials to support anti-immigration bills and in helping to draft Arizona’s SB 1070.  APN previously reported on these connections, with CCA lobbyists currently working the halls of the Georgia Capitol.

“The private prison corporations that make money off of immigrants are behind these bills,” Azadeh Shahshahani, Director of the National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project of American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, said.  ”Do we want Georgia to be known as a state friendly to CCA or a state friendly to immigrants?”

CCA’s profitability depends on increasing numbers of immigrants sent to their for-profit private prisons.

“There is nothing more powerful than a committed and determined people.  You must not give up.  You must not give in.  You must to everything possible to keep this bill from passing,” the legendary US Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said.  ”There are no illegal human beings.  We do not want Arizona type legislation in Georgia.”

“Immigration is an issue for the national government not the government of the State of Georgia,” Lewis said. ”If you are arrested, I will get arrested and go to jail with you.  The jails in Georgia are not large enough to hold all of us,” Lewis promised.

Read at: AtlantaProgressiveNews.com, “8,000 Rally against Georgia Anti-Immigrant Bills” by Gloria Tatum, 25 Mar 2011.

As of Wednesday, proposals for an “Arizona style” immigration reform have passed both the House and the Senate.  Yet considering the differences between the bills, and cautious indifference expressed by the Governor, this may be as far as either bill goes.  Aligning the competing interests within the Republican base over this issue add an extreme degree of difficulty in moving this concept to Georgia law.

The House version, HB-87, is by far the tougher of the two pieces of legislation.  While both measures require the use of E-Verify –the federal system designed to verify citizenship or other eligibility for employment – the House bill goes much further, and has fewer exceptions to which employers must use the system.  The Senate version exempts farmers from using E-Verify, which leave a large number of potential illegal immigrant employees outside the scope of the law, and leaves those who employ them free to continue status quo.  This loophole affects not just vast sections of South Georgia, but the poultry industry of North Georgia – a key economic driver in the home region of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and the Speaker of the House.

The House version would further penalize employers by not granting licenses and other state required documents to businesses who fail to use E-Verify.  It also has penalties for transporting or harboring illegal immigrants, as well as adds stiff penalties for those who attempt to use fake identification to secure employment.

Governor Deal, for his part, has urged caution of placing an “undue burden” on employers, and has questioned whether E-Verify works as promised.  Just under one year ago, Candidate Nathan Deal was a bit more firm on the subject, saying “I agree with the Arizona governor and Legislature that the federal government has failed miserably at protecting our borders and enacting sensible solutions that would protect our states, counties and cities from bearing the enormous costs associated with illegal immigration, from emergency room visits to public schools to the criminal justice system. As governor of Georgia, I’d work to pass and sign similar legislation.”

And therein lies the state of the current debate.  As candidates, Republicans are increasingly aware that any threat to their continued existence lies in primaries and not general elections.  And throughout the recent election, no candidate wanted to let any other candidate get to their right on immigration reform and enforcement.  Even Democratic nominee Roy Barnes signaled support for similar legislation, indicating strong political support from much more than just Republicans and the hard right.

Read more at: PeachPundit.com, Today’s Courier Herald Column, ”Arizona Style Immigration Law Easy To Promise, Harder To Deliver” by Charlie, 12 Mar 2011.

After long conversations with friends about the possibilities of having a job as a farm worker, their answer is very clear, they are not going to work as farmers. I wonder who is going to pick up the lettuce for the salad that the Peachtree City representative Mr. Ramsey wants to have for lunch tomorrow, is he going to wash the dishes himself?

There is too much to lose not just for undocumented workers, but for all Georgians. The majority of undocumented workers here in Atlanta are Hispanics and even though I have been discriminated in several occasions, I refuse to believe that the motive of Mr. Ramsey is racism, this is 2011 and Georgia finally is becoming the melting pot that has been sweeping the nation for the last 40 years. The country is finally becoming United. We are becoming ONE, it’s not the south and the north, the east and the west, the democrats and the republicans, the blacks and the whites. For crying out loud we have a President that is half black and half white, he is a liberal democrat that admires a conservative Ronald Reagan, he was born in Hawaii and his adulthood is from the midwest. Please don’t let HB-87 bring Georgia back to the times of NO BLACKS, NO DOGS, NO MEXICANS those days are over and it’s a painful and shameful time of our history, especially in the south.

I always try to put myself in somebody elses shoes so I can understand their pain, their struggle, their point of view, their motives, etc.  Imagine if you come to work one day and your boss tells you that you don’t have a job anymore and knowing that with the HB-87 you will not be able to get a job in Georgia; you go home and tell your kids that the family has to move to Haiti, Mexico, Nigeria, Romania, Ecuador, etc. or any other place where illegal immigrants come from.  Imagine your kids telling you in perfect english that they don’t want to leave their country (United States), because that’s where they have their friends, school, home, etc.  HB-87 doesn’t affect only undocumented workers, affects too many people and some of those are American citizens.  HB-87 affects all of Georgians and that’s why we need to STOP THIS MADNESS.

Most undocumented workers come to this wonderful land of opportunity basically for the same reason as in the las 500 years, to look for a better future for our children and our children’s children’s.  I can’t conceive in my mind that the  government would deport 12 to 15 million undocumented workers and if the members of the Georgia Assembly know that, what they are doing is persecution of the overwhelming majority of undocumented workers that live a life in peace and contributing to the greatness of this country. 

I hope common sense prevail in the minds of the distinguished members of the Georgia House of Representatives and that common sense allows them to see that the amount of undocumented workers in this country is more than the entire population of Georgia and Alabama combined.  Just imagine how many parents, children, brother, sisters, friends, etc, die every day in a population the size of these two states. Now imagine that the relatives who die or are sick are living in any part of the rest of the world and you have to decide “or leave the state of Georgia and never comeback, or just give the farewell to your dearest relatives from the distance”.  That is one of the dilemma that millions of undocumented workers face daily in this beautiful country. And for the members of the House of Representative of Georgia to make it even more harsh is inhumane. Probably they are too caught up with the term “illegal aliens” that they really believe that we come from outer space and therefore we shouldn’t be treated as human beings.

Once again I just hope that common sense prevails and hopefully Comprehensive immigration reform is achieved in the near future.