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| | Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law Page 1 of 4 (1, 2, 3, 4) | Unable to register, illegal immigrants return vehicles
By MARY LOU PICKEL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/16/07
Jose Genao sells used cars for a living, but lately he's had to turn away customers from his Smyrna dealership.
Genao used to sell about 15 vehicles a week, mostly Ford F-150 or Silverado pickups to a Mexican clientele. Now he sells only two or three.
Half a dozen customers have returned cars because they can't register them.
"They bring the key and tell me, 'Jose, I'm leaving,' " Genao said.
Genao is feeling the fallout from a new state law, effective July 1, that requires a valid Georgia driver's license or ID card to register a car in Georgia.
The law is cutting deep into traffic for many auto dealers and tag and title services catering to the state's growing immigrant community. Illegal immigrants can't get driver's licenses because to do so, they must prove they're in the country legally.
The law also has the potential to cut into sales taxes and county ad valorem tax revenues, though metro area counties say it's too early to measure that effect.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) said he did not target immigrants.
"Yes, this will impact people who are here illegally, but my biggest focus is public safety," he said.
"If [car dealers and tag services] have built their business on people who are here illegally, I'm sorry, but at some point they had to realize that was not going to continue," Rogers said.
The license plate law closes a window that gave motorists 30 days to get Georgia driver's licenses after moving to the state. In the interim, a driver could register a car with an out-of-state or international license.
Also effective July 1 was a separate, 2006 law requiring increased verification of legal status in Georgia for a variety of other purposes, including to work in some jobs or qualify for welfare.
While no one knows how many illegal immigrants are in Georgia, a government estimate put the number around 470,000. Nationally, most illegal immigrants are from Mexico, followed by El Salvador, Guatemala, India and China, according to a 2005 Department of Homeland Security report.
Genao, 34, has a green card and has lived in the United States eight years. If business doesn't pick up, he might return to his native Dominican Republic to tend to a car dealership there.
"If they don't do something, a lot of businesses are going to close," he said.
Tony Brooks, an insurance agent who caters to the Hispanic community in Marietta, said business for his tag and title service has dropped off about 80 percent since the law went into effect.
"It's definitely slowing things down, that's for sure," Brooks said.
He's had to turn away 30 to 40 people wanting tags in the last two weeks because they don't have Georgia driver's licenses.
His main business is auto insurance, which hasn't suffered, but he's worried immigrant customers won't buy insurance either if they can't register their cars.
Cobb County's tag offices have seen a "significant decrease" in the volume of applications submitted by tag and title services in the last two weeks, said Stewart Manley, manager of Cobb County's tag offices.
The county has also turned away about 40 people per day, Manley said, out of an average 1,900 customers served daily. Some are people who have moved from other states and don't have Georgia driver's licenses yet, Manley said. "They're complaining mildly," he said.
Tax collectors in Cobb, Gwinnett and DeKalb said it is too early to tell how the new license plate law would affect tax collection.
"You really won't see the effect economically for six months," said Brent Bennett, director of vehicle registrations for DeKalb County.
Loopholes exist even with the new law.
An illegal immigrant can still mail in a tag renewal or go online and avoid the need to show a driver's license.
That's what Raul Hernandez plans to do. He is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who came here legally but overstayed his visa and so has a Georgia driver's license. He doesn't have to worry about the tag problem, but his friends do.
"People have asked me to get tags for them in my name. Right now I said 'No, it's not worth the risk. If they get tickets, they'll be sent to me,' " he said in Spanish.
"Right now people are scared, but it will settle down and go back to normal," Hernandez predicted.
Isaias Zavala, 33, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who works construction, said he has no license but his wife does, so he registers their car through her. Still, he worries because he has to drive to work.
"This all seems very bad to me," he said in Spanish of the new law.
Perimeter Insurance Agency used to process 25 tags per week in one Cobb County location. Since July 1, they've done only three renewals, said Jose Mendez, part owner of the business.
His co-owner, Rick Craddock, said he appreciates his immigrant customers.
"We love these people," Craddock said.
But he acknowledges there is a problem with illegal immigration. "We have to secure the border and slow the influx," he said. "The solution is not to kick out all the people who are already here." | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 4:49:02 PM |
The law is cutting deep into traffic for many auto dealers and tag and title services catering to the state's growing immigrant community. Illegal immigrants can't get driver's licenses because to do so, they must prove they're in the country legally.
It wouldn't cut into their business if they didn't deal with the illegals, and I hate the burden put upon the illegals that they can't get a drivers license....
Hey, your here illegally...
Also effective July 1 was a separate, 2006 law requiring increased verification of legal status in Georgia for a variety of other purposes, including to work in some jobs or qualify for welfare.
So sad they are required to be legal to work or get public assistance...
Hey, your here illegally...
Tony Brooks, an insurance agent who caters to the Hispanic community in Marietta, said business for his tag and title service has dropped off about 80 percent since the law went into effect.
"It's definitely slowing things down, that's for sure," Brooks said.
He's had to turn away 30 to 40 people wanting tags in the last two weeks because they don't have Georgia driver's licenses.
You shouldn't have been circumventing the rules to assist them...
Isaias Zavala, 33, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who works construction, said he has no license but his wife does, so he registers their car through her. Still, he worries because he has to drive to work.
"This all seems very bad to me," he said in Spanish of the new law.
He doesn't have a license, yet complains about the law as he wants to drive to work...
Hey, your here illegally...
I heard the new law was one of the toughest in the nation, and if it is causing problems for the illegals and also the businesses that cater to them, good...
If businesses wouldn't make things easy, and if the illegals would have come here legally, these problems wouldn't be around...
They made their bed, created their situation, so now they have to deal with it...
OR GO HOME!!!!!!!!!!!! | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 5:23:15 PM | I live and work in the Atlanta area so I can tell you first hand the impact has had on our work force and believe me it's been considerable. Most of them (illegals) simply go up to NC where licenses are ridiculously easy to obtain. IMHO the only thing this law will produce will be a greater market for phony documents.
It's commendable that our local law makers are trying to solve the problem but the real problem exists at the federal level. As long as they continue to allow 2500 illegals a day we're screwed. It's a big business policy and it's been going on for centuries. I don't have the time for a historical discourse. Look it up for yourselves. The slaves were freed for the industrial revolution in the north. The mass immigrations during the civil war to replace fallen Union soldiers, the mass immigration policies that brought many thousands of Chinese to build the railroads followed by the Irish and later the Italians. It's all about cheap labor.
I get sick to my stomach every time I hear one of those son of a **** politicians say "they're taking the jobs no one wants". No one asked me!!!
BTW, " they" have been telling us for quite sometime now that there are 12 million illlegals. The true number is closer to 22 milion and growing. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 8:44:11 PM | I applaud what Georgia is doing. States and cities are being forced to take action because the federal government doesn't want to fix it. One of the biggest problems is we don't have a president who's willing to fully enforce laws on the books against illegal immigration. Bush certainly is not doing it and Clinton and Bush sr. didn't either, neither did Reagan. So we have a serious problem with U.S. presidents refusing to enforce laws. If we want this problem fixed at the federal level, we need to make sure we get a president into office who will fully enforce immigration laws. The only ones I think we can really trust to do that would be either Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul or Tom Tancredo. Check out this link for more info
http://www.betterimmigration.com/reportcardintro.html | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 8:59:08 PM | If all the illegals got up and left this country tomorrow, we'd be in sad sorry shape. Just remember that. I recently returned from a trip to a city that has many illegals. The person I stayed with said all you have to do is look at the plates, if they are out of state then they are illegal. These are hard working people.
Everyone is so paranoid about Muslim extremists coming into America illegally, I got news for you, most of the illegals are not arab nor muslim extremists, just hard working people who want to make money for their families.
The scary guys are going to try and get here legally so as not to draw attention to themselves. I know of a group of Moroccan Muslims who are targeting women on Myspace in order to marry and come here legally. Already five of them have western wives. I fell into their scheme rather haphazardly, they didn't target me specifically. They seem to go after heavy set women, usually single moms with kids who could use a husband's second income to help them get by. Within one day of talking to one of these guys, he was asking me to marry him. Luckily I have a great Muslim friend who checked the guy out, asked him some questions, and the guy backed off me quick, because he knew we had busted him.
Now whether they are just coming here to have a better life, or they have more devious plans, i couldn't say, but I did report it to homeland security who didn't bother to acknowledge my email. Apparently they are more worried about migrant mexican workers than Muslism men conning women into marriage. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 9:16:15 PM |
I agree with the poster above me wholeheartedly. Come her LEGALLY or GO BACK
I am sure the survivors of the genocide Europeans waged upon the indigenous population here feel the same. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 9:23:27 PM | The only thing this law has done was make the odds of my own tag getting stolen that much greater.
I think they should give driver licenses to illegals. Give then a driver license and you have a better idea of how many are here, where they live, etc. But mainly because they will get insurance. Rather you like it or not, the illegal residents are here to stay. You aren't going to just ride around in a big truck and pick up 20+ million of them.
You can seal the border and stop the flood, but in the end you are still going to have to deal with the ones who are here now and all of their legal children. Laws like this one just create a mess but in reality does very little to resolve anything. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 10:23:44 PM | You don't have to round up the illegals and deport them. If employers are prevented from illegally hiring illegal aliens and they can't get on welfare, then most illegals will leave on their own and businesses will have to hire legal workers again.  | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 10:29:51 PM | | If the jobs dry up.....won't need to pick them up....many will go home and work to change circumstances in their own countries. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 10:55:43 PM | | thier here illegaly so they are breaking the law it seams the polticans are more interesited in them than thier own people they repersent, they sure were not put into ofice to repersent them. we didnt like the way we were being treated by the british so we did something about it they should to but not here. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/19/2007 11:33:04 PM | All these laws will do is propagate the same underground businesses we have in Texas. There are at least 2 dozen places in Houston alone that can and do produce every type of identification necessary. For $50, I can buy an illegal inspection sticker for my car, and another $150, I can buy license plate stickers.
If I, a middle-class, caucasian woman, know about these places, can there be any doubt that law enforcement officers also know? But, with murder, rape, and robbery rampart, they are so overwhelmed that fraudulant documents and illegally owned and operated vehicles seem minor.
No matter how well intentioned, law makers don't seem to learn. Every new law is simply an opportunity for some enterprising person to make a buck. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/20/2007 12:13:40 AM | | You can be heard.......google numbersUSA on the Internet.......they had a lot of influence in defeating the senate bill for amnesty.....educate yourself on their organization and support their efforts | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/20/2007 12:35:46 AM | >>>If the jobs dry up.....
Is.....is that even possible?
I mean, Mexicans need homes, food, and entertainment too- and that means more people working the farms, working the grocery stores, delivering the food, building the homes, making movies, ect.
More people in the country, regardless if they're Illegal or not, means more jobs. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/20/2007 1:46:45 AM | | As the the fraudulent I.D. problem, won't the REAL I.D. act that was passed into law(and will take effect in the near future) unanimously in the senate help take care of that problem to a certain extent? I know some states are opposed to it for various reasons, but I think Georgia is concerned about it but has not opted out of it completely, at least not at this time that I'm aware of. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/20/2007 2:52:19 AM | | I just got done reading this thread at 1st I thought maybe GA. passed an open season on illegal Aliens! Hey I can dream cant I! The way I see it if all the illegal aliens got booted perminetly out of the USA the rest of us would have that space we all want no more traffic on the roads our taxes pay for no more over crowded schools again our taxes pay for. Now would we have tofree all the ilegals out of our prisons or can we at least fry them! You sure dont see 22 million Americans flooding into live and work in Mexico! I really doubt they are taking the jobs that nobody legally here wants to work! I can over look all our tax dollars going to black opts projects if they kick the ilegals out! Actually I think if they took a common legal person off the street they would kick out alot of the money waisted like the 100 million spent on how many times a cow farts in an hour or that 50 thousand dollar bolt in a chair at some military desk the same bolt you can get at any Mom & Pops hardware store for 25 cents! A good start is lets get rid of the ilegal aliens and go on from there bet after awhile we would be out of debt and could have free healthcare for all legal citizens and so forth! | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/21/2007 2:33:15 PM |  New law gonna create more legal problems becaues people will then just steal tags on the car, or pay someone else to buy the automobile for them. The only way to slow immigration from Mexico is reduce the wage gap between United State and Mexico. Fences, deporatations, shooting migrants will never stop the flow, and the only way to reduce immigration flows is rapid growth in Latin American economies. If was a poor person in Oxcaca and young I would sneak in Untied States because working illegally in the Untied States for just 5 years will save money to build a house, and drive home a decent car, and staying in Mexico the only option to make money is knowing the right people to get a job, or working for the drug cartels. Can rant anti-immigrant garbage all you want not gonna make a difference which laws are enforced, and how. Until Mexico economy grows at rate to create jobs incentive to go north will contiune. Immigration law is complex and 98% of Americans right now would not even get in because of empathasis on family ties, and people with supra Phds cant only get about 20% of the time from around the world. Before you start to complain about immigration look at American immigration law, look at the greencard lottery, look at H2b or H1b visa system its a joke. Skilled or Unskilled worker has better odds making a living illegally in the USA than legally. | |
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SISL
| | Joined: 2/20/2007
Msg: 19 | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/21/2007 6:34:14 PM | I think Georgia's new law should be the model for all he states to follow!
and that argument that illegal aliens are only doing the jobs no one wants and our economy will falter if they were not here - is the same arguments used by the south in favor of slavery a long time ago. It is no more valid today as it was then. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/21/2007 8:24:46 PM | As the citizens of each state reach their tolerance levels and demand their state government enact laws to discourage settlement within their state of "illegal aliens", eventually the illegals will see that the American citizens have reached a point of demanding that the citizens rights be placed before big business and "illegal aliens"
Check out NumbersUSA.com an organization representing the people, giving the working, tax paying American people a voice. They make it very easy to contact your elected state and federal representatives, demanding that immigration laws be up dated and enforced. They had a big role in defeating the amnesty bill that the Senate and Bush tried to ram rod through congress. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/21/2007 9:32:16 PM | I am sure the survivors of the genocide Europeans waged upon the indigenous population here feel the same.
LMAO...Now we are talking about Genocide??? We aren't going to kill them...we just want to make sure they enter the country legally. Thats asking to much??? Instead...we have to hear them **** about obeying simple laws??? The Government is way to soft on them. In the late eighties, I got a job with a local company, and had lost my SS card years ago, the number was on my drivers liscense. But was absolutely hounded to get another one or they would fire me. Even though I was raised in the town, and grew up with half the people that worked there, they had to have proof I was a citizen. What ever happened to that??? All these illegals working for construction and packing houses and don't have to show ID??? Something has to be done...illegals pay no taxes, and put a horrible strain on welfare and healthcare and states are getting fed up with it. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/22/2007 9:13:49 AM | Thanks for posting this!! I'm glad to see things FINALLY happening to get these people out of our country.
I want all illegal aliens to be legal. Send them back where they came from.
Any anyone who's sympathies lie with the illegals, you might think about reading up on the damage they're doing to this country. | |
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| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/22/2007 10:10:47 AM | States are starting to address these issues within their own borders. Oklahoma has passed one of the most stringent laws to discourage settlement of "illegals" within their borders to date. American citizens are starting to demand their state and federal representatives stop dragging their heels and start addressing the issues.
Big business has too much influence in government and singularly the American citizen doesn't have much avenue to be heard on the matter, but gathering together, speaking as a group, we do have power.
Alien yourself with groups who feel the same as you do on these issues and demand to be heard and have your rights put before Big Business, Bush and Money. | |
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yna6
| | Joined: 1/21/2007
Msg: 25 | |
| Illegal Aliens--Georgia's New Law
Posted: 7/22/2007 2:18:08 PM | | Maybe make a law stating that if you are residing in the state for 3 or more months, you are legal...and have to pay taxes, buy insurance, etc, etc, and swell the population to the point where even high tech jobs pay inimum wage. Start a real banana republic! | |
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