GO GEORGIA!!!!!





Georgia Enlists Citizens to Battle Illegal Aliens

The state’s controversial new immigration enforcement law cedes the power to punish wayward officials to a citizens panel





Georgia is about to embark on a bold experiment in privatization. Starting next year, officials in the state—mayors, county commissioners, and even business license clerks—could face $5,000 fines from a panel of citizen volunteers empowered by the state to investigate complaints about lax enforcement of immigration laws. The body will also have the authority to strip funding from local governments.

The first-of-its-kind Immigration Enforcement Review Board is part of Georgia’s new immigration statute, one of the toughest in the country. The law, which took effect on July 1, has already provoked a federal lawsuit and a court injunction—and led to a shortage of fruit and vegetable pickers during the harvest season. There were 425,000 illegal immigrants in Georgia in 2009, making up 4.3 percent of the state’s population, according to the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center.

Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican, says the board’s seven unpaid members will be named in the next few months and he expects the panel to begin its work in January. The law doesn’t offer any guidelines on who may be eligible to sit on the board.

D.A. King, a Georgia activist who helped shape the new law, is pleased with the results. “It is a significant step in that we have expanded Georgia law to intentionally make life very, very difficult and insecure for people who hire illegal immigrants, the illegals themselves, and the anti-enforcement politicians.â€