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Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Georgia Immigration Bill Would Deny Foreign Passports as Acceptable I.D.

Wall Street Journal: Despite the many challenges to stricter immigration laws around the nation, lawmakers in Georgia are considering a bill that would remove foreign passports from a list of acceptable identification documents that government agencies can accept, and prohibit undocumented immigrants from getting marriage licenses or access to water and sewage, AP reported.

The bill would also bar undocumented immigrants from the state’s public colleges, universities and technical schools, Fox News Latino noted.

Following Arizona’s strict immigration law – which will be the subject of Supreme Court hearing later this year – Georgia passed a similar law in 2011, giving wide powers to police to investigate the immigration status of undocumented immigrants.

As Law Blog noted, a federal judge blocked parts of the Georgia law last summer. The most controversial parts of the law, including the requirement that law enforcement check the immigration status of suspects who can’t produce identification, and another provision that would punish those who intentionally transport or house someone in the country illegally, were among those blocked.

Under the current bill – which is separate from the 2011 law – passports would have to be accompanied by federal immigration documentation that proves the person is in the U.S. legally.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican from Cassville, said barring immigrants from things like marriage and water were unintended consequences of the bill, and an amendment was likely to fix that, according to AP.

According to the Savannah Daily News, Loudermilk was less apologetic about the schools: “[U]nder federal code, post-secondary education is listed as a public benefit and therefore requires applicants to present a secure and verifiable document.”

“It’s very interesting that the reliability of foreign passports is being questioned by the Georgia Legislature when the Transportation and Security Administration has considered the passport to be a very secure form of ID,” ACLU attorney Azadeh Shahshahani told Fox News Latino.

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