Immigration Reform 2012: Georgia Police to Enforce Controversial 'Show Me Your Papers' Immigration Law After Injunction Was Lifted

With a federal judge lifting an injunction this week, Georgia law enforcement officials can start enforcing the controversial "show-me-your-papers" law.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash, who placed the Georgia law under an injunction last year after civil and immigrant rights activists sued to block it, signed an order complying with an appeals court in Atlanta that reversed the ruling in August.

The law gives state and local Georgia police the right to investigate the immigration status of and detain suspects they believe are undocumented residents. The provision mimics a similar law installed in Arizona.

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Georgia ranked sixth last year for the estimated number of illegal immigrants living within its borders, at 440,000.

Critics claim that the law leads to racial profiling, and the groups who sued to stop the law could do so again if they feel that immigrant groups such as Latinos are being targeted by police.

"Any type of violations of individuals' rights - including prolonged detention - is something we will be looking for, documenting and will bring back to court," Karen Tumlin, a managing attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, told the Journal-Constitution. The center was part of a coalition of civil and immigrant rights groups that sued to block the statute.

However, supporters of the law say it protects taxpayers by pushing undocumented immigrants utilizing state resources out of the state. State Rep. Matt Ramsey, who sponsored the law, told the Journal-Constitution last week that the law is solely a choice that police agencies in the state have, and predicted that said agencies will enforce the law differently based on available officers on call.

"It will be on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis," he said in an interview last week.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a split verdict on Arizona's controversial 2010 immigration law, which upheld Arizona's own "Show-me-your-papers" law while striking down other parts.

Ramsey praised that decision in a statement that month.

"Today's ruling confirms our belief that not only was Georgia's H.B. 87 an important step in protecting taxpayers from the social and economic consequences of illegal immigration, but the statute was also drafted to withstand constitutional scrutiny," he wrote on his web site.

There is concern about how the law will affect farming communities in Georgia dependent on immigrant workers who work on those farms.

"Clearly, the police chiefs are not going to encourage their people to stop everybody and arrest them because they don't have the right paperwork," said executive director of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police Frank Rotondo. "They are going to use a lot of discretion because the economy of the whole community relies upon that."