Thread: GA-Strict immigration law lacks ‘teeth’

4:46 a.m. Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Text size:
Strict immigration law lacks ‘teeth’
By Mary Lou Pickel



Work continues on Cobb County's new courthouse building under construction in Marietta. Cobb County prides itself as a place where illegal immigration is not tolerated, but suspected illegal workers on this project have been an issue.
Johnny Crawford, jcrawford@ajc.com

Nearly four years after it was passed, a state law cracking down on the hiring of illegal immigrants has had little effect: Two county prosecutors say they can’t bring charges under the law because it provides no penalties. And the state hasn’t audited a single employer because the Legislature hasn’t set aside money to do so.

In Cobb County, the discovery that suspected illegal workers were helping to build the county’s new courthouse has called into question a key provision of the 2006 Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act. The law was supposed to ensure that contractors on public projects — like the Cobb courthouse — use legal workers by requiring the contractors to verify their workers’ status. Rules passed by the state Labor Department require contractors to sign affidavits swearing to that effect.

In Cobb in particular, the affidavit system hasn’t worked. The prime contractor on the courthouse job created its own forms for subcontractors that were not really affidavits at all. A review of the documents by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows they were not dated, contained no oath and were not witnessed by a notary public.

Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head faults the law for not providing penalties for those who break it.

“It would have been good to say, ‘This shall be punished,’ â€

Quote:
"But it was in the heart of Cobb County, just off the historic Marietta Square, where allegations surfaced that illegal immigrants may have worked on the new courthouse.

A bricklayers’ union representative from Washington spoke with masons working on the courthouse last fall, asking how he could get a job.

The workers told him in Spanish that no papers were required and the pay was in cash, said Jose Alvarez, a representative of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers."

Reply:
Discouraging, to say the least.