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Cherokee likely to delay rental law on illegal immigrants

By CHRISTOPHER QUINN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/31/06
Authorities in Cherokee County probably will delay enforcing an ordinance that would punish landlords who rent to illegal immigrants.

The ordinance was scheduled to take effect today, just weeks after the county commissioners unanimously approved the measure at an emotional meeting before a standing-room-only crowd.

Yet county workers are not trained to enforce it. And the prospect of paying to defend the ordinance from a legal challenge has also stirred second thoughts. City leaders in Escondido, Calif. recently abandoned a similar law after agreeing to pay $90,000 to lawyers representing civil rights groups who sued the city.

"Escondido settled their case by backing out due to rising legal fees," Commissioner Jim Hubbard said. "That makes it worth another discussion."

Hubbard said he supported the ordinance after an acting county attorney told commissioners the legal fees probably would not be high, and that the ordinance seemed on solid legal ground.

The commissioners could discuss the landlord ordinance this month.

Hubbard said Cherokee should consider delaying enforcement of the landlord ordinance until a judge rules on a legal challenge to a similar law in Hazelton, Pa.

Leavitt "Buzz" Ahrens, the new commission chairman, asked the acting county attorney to review Cherokee's ordinance and the legal landscape. "I think it would be irresponsible to do something without looking at all the options and risks," he said.

The ordinance in question would require landlords to collect information about renters' immigration status. Landlords would have to provide such information to the county on demand. Those found to be renting to illegal immigrants would have five days to evict them or risk losing business licenses; the ordinance also would prevent them from collecting rent from illegal immigrants.

Jamie B. Hernan, a lawyer who has threatened to sue Cherokee County over the landlord ordinance, said he will wait to see if the commissioners back off. Hernan believes the ordinance is unconstitutional because it assigns to local government a duty of the federal government — enforcing the nation's immigration laws. He also says the ordinance conflicts with federal and state laws.

"We will represent without charge any landlord or tenant," who runs afoul of the ordinance, he said.

Other moves aimed at making life tough for illegal immigrants formally take effect today but will be phased in.

Last month, the Cherokee County commissioners made English the county's official language, a largely symbolic move.

The commissioners also directed county departments and contractors to verify that their employees are in the United States legally. And they will require agencies doling out public benefits, such as unemployment, food stamps and Temporary Aid to Needy Families, to make sure recipients are here legally as well.

A new state law will require local government across Georgia to take those steps beginning this summer.

"We are going to have to do it anyway," said Commissioner Harry Johnston. "There's no harm in doing it early."

Meanwhile, Sheriff Roger Garrison has declined the request of Commissioner Derek Good that Cherokee County participate in a federal program to train local officers to identify and hold for deportation arrested illegal immigrants.

"I believe [the program] is nothing more than a smoke screen from the federal government to stick local government to make us do their job," Garrison said. "And I can't allow the Cherokee County Jail to become a federal holding facility."

It could cost his department an unknown amount of money in salaries and space at the jail, he said.

"We have to keep bed space in our jails for people we are afraid of, and find an alternate means of punishment for those persons we are just mad at," Garrison said. "And for the most part, we are just mad at the illegals."

Like much of metro Atlanta, fast-growing Cherokee, on the northern edge of metro Atlanta, has attracted a burgeoning immigrant population in the last dozen years.

In 1990, the U.S. Census Bureau counted 1,419 foreign-born residents of Cherokee County — about 1.5 percent of all people in the county. In 2005, the Census Bureau said 17,715 people in Cherokee County were born abroad, nearly 10 percent of the county population.

About a third of Cherokee County's foreign-born population are U.S. citizens. An unknown number are in the United States without permission.

As in the rest of metro Atlanta, immigrants have gravitated in Cherokee County to jobs on construction and landscaping crews and in restaurants and poultry processing plants. Their arrival has stirred tension with other residents, many of whom in public meetings encouraged the commissioners to act.








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