Georgia Citizen Panel to Fine Immigration-Crackdown Laggards, Enforce Law

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-19/georgia-panel-empowered-for-immigration-crackdown.html

The board will be able to subpoena witnesses and strip funding from public bodies it finds have violated the law and levy fines against governments and individuals. The first-of-its-kind Immigration Enforcement Review Board is part of a law that took effect July 1, making Georgia one of six states that have taken immigration enforcement duties into their own hands. To date, the law has provoked a federal lawsuit, a court injunction and a shortage of fruit and vegetable pickers in Georgia’s harvest season. The enforcement board’s job is to keep government officials in line.

Kuck said the review panel was added to the legislation with no public hearing, and will invite mischief, increase paperwork and waste money without effect on illegal immigration. He said the board reminded him of Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy’s investigations of supposed Communists in the 1950s. “It’s like a mini-McCarthy panel,” he said.

A federal court blocked two key requirements four days earlier in response to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union and several partners. It blocked language allowing police to check immigration status and criminalizing transportation of illegal aliens in some circumstances. The ACLU has sued in five of the six states with new laws and won similar injunctions in four.

Parrott, three hours south of Atlanta, has a population of 156. It’s one of only five jurisdictions that in the past year complied with the requirement to report a business-license applicant whose legal status was unverifiable. “I couldn’t get the system to work,” Riegle said. “I did all the things I was supposed to do. It is horrible. These little towns, we have so many mandates coming out of Atlanta, our workload has doubled.”

Very much in keeping with Georgia's 20th Century past.