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Tuesday, Sep. 22, 2009

Warner Robins second Houston city to pass SAVE

WARNER ROBINS — The Warner Robins City Council became the second city council in the area to not argue admission into a program that effectively denies certain city services to undocumented aliens.

City Clerk Stan Martin said under the SAVE program, which stands for Systematic Alien Verification and Entitlements, people seeking city-issued licenses will have their immigration statuses cross-checked against a national registry updated by U.S. Homeland Security.

Perry’s city council voted to begin the program at its Sept. 15 meeting.

“We really don’t have a choice about doing it,” Martin said. “It’s really being forced down our throats.”

In 2007, the Georgia General Assembly made it a requirement for all local governments in the state to ensure those seeking alcoholic beverage and taxi licenses, among other things, be verified as being in the country legally.

Statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center, based in Washington, D.C., show about 12 million Hispanics currently live in the United States. About 4 percent of those, or about 500,000, are said to live in Georgia.

Law enforcement agencies already are using the Homeland Security database to check a person’s documented status through several programs across the country. The program that has been the most publicized is 287(g), which allows law enforcement officials to cross-check the immigration status of anyone pulled over during a traffic stop.

Hispanic advocacy groups have called it divisive and demeaning.

Martin said the program will be handled by his staff in the clerk’s office. While the cost for adding the national database checks into the city’s procedures was not immediately known, councilman John Havrilla offered an idea for where the money should come from.

“They need to send federal money along with the federal mandate,” he said.

The city was informed of its expected participation in a letter dated Sept. 2 from the Georgia Municipal Association. Martin said officials have not said what repercussions exist for license applicants who are declared undocumented through the national system.

Mayor Donald Walker said the council didn’t vote on the measure because it was a requirement by the state to join in with the program.

“I don’t believe it helps us whatsoever,” he said Monday afternoon.

“But it’s the law. I can see some need for a law like that, but ... it’s prohibitive. We’ve managed to get along fine without the federal government sticking their noses in it.

“So until the (American Civil Liberties Union) gets it overturned, we’ve got to do it.”