Georgia Governor Signs Law Requiring Jailers to Check Prisoners’ Immigration Status

ATLANTA (AP) — Jailers in Georgia must now check inmates’ immigration status and request help enforcing federal immigration law, under a bill that gained traction after police accused a Venezuelan man of spanking a nursing student to his death on the University of Georgia campus.

Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill into law Wednesday at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth. Most provisions take effect immediately.

The Republican governor signed a separate law requiring cash bail for 30 additional crimes and restricts people and charitable bail funds from posting cash bonds for more than three people per year unless they meet the requirements to become a bail bond company. This law comes into force on July 1st.

Kemp said Wednesday that the immigration bill, House Bill 1105“became one of our top priorities following the senseless death of Laken Riley at the hands of someone illegally in this country who had already been arrested even after crossing the border.”

Jose Ibarra was arrested on murder and assault charges in the death of 22-year-old Laken Riley. Immigration authorities say Ibarra, 26, crossed illegally into the United States in 2022. It is unclear whether he has applied for asylum. Riley’s death triggered a political storm as conservatives used the case to blame President Joe Biden for immigration failures.

“If you enter our country illegally and continue to commit more crimes in our communities, we will not allow your crimes to go unanswered,” Kemp said.

Opponents warn that the law will turn local authorities into immigration police, making immigrants less willing to report crimes and work with agents. Opponents also point to studies that show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.

The law sets out specific requirements for how corrections officials must check with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine whether prisoners are in the country illegally. Previously, Georgia law only encouraged jailers to do so, but the new law makes it a misdemeanor to “knowingly and intentionally” fail to check immigration status. The bill would also deny state funding to local governments that do not cooperate.

The law also mandates that local jails apply what is known as 287(g) Agreement with ICE to allow local jailers to help enforce immigration law. It’s unclear how many would be accepted because President Joe Biden’s administration has deemphasized the program. The program does not authorize local authorities to make specific immigration arrests outside of the prison.

Republicans said Senate Bill 63which requires cash bail, is necessary to keep criminals locked up, though it erodes changes Republican Gov. Nathan Deal championed in 2018 to allow judges to release most people accused of misdemeanors without bail.

“We’ve often seen some of our cities or counties, it’s been a revolving door with criminals,” said Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.

Advocates said judges would still have the power to set very low bails. A separate part of the 2018 reform, which requires judges to consider someone’s ability to pay, would remain law.

But the measure could lock poor defendants in jail when charged with crimes for which they are unlikely to go to prison and worsen overcrowding in Georgia county jails.

It is part of a pressure from Republicans across the country to increase reliance on cash bail, even as some Democrat-led jurisdictions do away with cash bail altogether or drastically restrict its use. This division was exemplified last year when a court upheld Illinois plan abolish cash bail, while voters in Wisconsin approved an amendment to the constitution that allows judges to consider someone’s previous convictions for violent crimes before setting bail.