In Georgia - the Police as ICE Agents

Students protest Senate Bill 529 on the steps of Georgia state capital. Photo by Alejandro Leal http://www.clpoliticalparty.com/general_assembly/index.html

Citizenship checks strain trust in police
Georgia law [SB 529] puts illegal immigrants at risk as victims of crime and racial profiling, Latino activists say.
By Jenny Jarvie, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times
July 29, 2007

ATLANTA — Emelina Ramirez called police to tell them her roommates were attacking her, punching and kicking her in the stomach. When the police arrived, they handcuffed her, took her to jail and ran her fingerprints through a federal database. She is now in an Alabama cell awaiting deportation.

In the last month, Ramirez's story has spread beyond the Latino community in Carrollton, the small rural town west of Atlanta where she lived, and across Georgia, which has just enacted one of the nation's toughest laws against illegal immigration. It is a story that, for many undocumented immigrants, has one moral: Do not trust the police.

"People are living in fear," said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Assn. of Latino Elected Officials, which is providing Latino residents information on the new law. That is difficult, he said, because of the vast differences in how local enforcement officials are interpreting the law.

The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, which took effect July 1, requires law enforcement officers to investigate the citizenship status of anyone charged with a felony or driving under the influence. It also directs the state Public Safety Department to select and train Georgia state patrol officers to enforce federal immigration law while carrying out regular duties.

Across the state, however, Latino activists say that local officials are increasingly running background checks on Latinos who commit misdemeanors, such as minor traffic violations, or even those who go to the police to report thefts or fraud.

At the same time, criminals are targeting undocumented immigrants, aware that they tend to have large amounts of cash and are wary of reporting crimes.

"It's the Wild West out here," said Rich Pellegrino, director of the Cobb Cherokee Immigrant Alliance, which has been working with Cobb County's crime prevention police unit to persuade undocumented immigrants to report crimes and serve as witnesses after a string of home invasions had targeted Latinos living in trailer parks.

This month, Pellegrino said, patrol officers checked the immigration status of a woman driving with a suspended tag, or license plate. She is now awaiting deportation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-deport29jul29,1,1475458.story

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Police plan forum to explain their role in illegal immigration

By Victor Miller
Dalton Daily Citizen
Dalton, GA
July 29, 2007

Chris McDonald says Dalton Police Department officials can’t just up and say they are “tired of waiting on the feds” and “round up anybody we think is illegal and put them on a bus and drive them down to Mexico and dump them off.”

“We can’t do that,” said Officer McDonald, the police department’s spokesman. “There’s no state statute that allows us to be able to do something like that.”

To help residents better understand the police department’s role concerning illegal immigration, the department will hold a public forum on Sept. 13 from 6 to 9 p.m. at City Hall...

McDonald said the department is waiting on guidelines expected to be developed between the state and the federal government under Georgia Senate Bill 529, parts of which went into effect on July 1. McDonald said SB529 mandates that a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) be entered into between the state commissioner of public safety, currently the head of the Georgia State Patrol, and the federal Department of Homeland Security.

...The Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office is seeking training for several of its deputies that would help them better assist ICE in identifying illegal aliens for removal. Sheriff Scott Chitwood has applied for the federal program.

“Basically, ICE will train state and local officers to be able to ‘enforce’ federal law,” McDonald said. “I use the word ‘enforce’ loosely. It gives them a little bit more power to be able to go out there and assist with these immigration issues.”


http://www.northwestgeorgia.com/local/local_story_199232023.html