The Georgia legislative session may be over, but the fight to protect the civil liberties of all Georgians is not. We need your calls and emails more than ever! 

Yesterday, the ACLU of Georgia sent a letter to Governor Nathan Deal, asking him to veto three bills that raise serious constitutional concerns. We are now calling on all of our members to email Governor Deal, or call his office at (404) 656-1776, and ask him to VETO the following bills:

 HB 772 - Drug Testing Applicants/Recipients of TANF & Food Assistance

• Would require drug testing for applicants and recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ("TANF") and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program ("SNAP"). These economically distressed applicants/recipients would be required to pay for their own drug tests. Similar laws have been declared unconstitutional by federal courts in Florida and Michigan.
• Talking Points:

• Laws requiring drug testing in exchange for public assistance violate our Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures because they require thousands of innocent, law abiding citizens to be tested without adequate, individualized suspicion and probable cause.
• This bill is unconstitutional because it would allow drug testing based on an applicant's demeanor and based on whether the applicant is a few minutes late to an appointment.  These criteria do not justify drug testing and courts will strike this law down as unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.
• Drug testing programs do not save money and there is no evidence that individuals on public assistance are more likely to use drugs. Before the Florida law was struck down, the State of Florida wasted tens of thousands of dollars on implementing the program, only to find that less than 3% of applicants tested positive for drugs.
• The federal government has already warned Georgia officials that they are prohibited from drug testing applicants for food assistance.
• This bill is nothing more than a mean-spirited attempt to stigmatize the poor.

SB 98 - Denial of Insurance Coverage for Reproductive Healthcare

• This is yet another example of the government interfering with the healthcare decisions of women. It would prohibit women from earning health coverage for reproductive healthcare services through their public employer, and it would deny them the ability to purchase health plans that offer these essential services through the healthcare exchange.

• Talking Points:

  • Medical decisions should be made by a woman and her doctor, not by politicians.

  • Many things can happen in a pregnancy and politicians have no place determining what kind of health care a woman in crisis should receive.

  • All women should have the peace of mind that their insurance will cover their health care needs.   

HB 837 - Expanded Authority for Private Probation Companies

• Enhances the ability of probation companies to abuse poor probationers-most of whom have committed low-level misdemeanors such as traffic violations-simply because they are too poor to pay court fines and company supervision fees.
• Unfairly extends probation by requiring courts to toll probation when a company probation officer indicates, without substantiation, that a person has missed a meeting or court hearing-whether or not there was adequate notice.
• Talking Points:

• Many poor probationers are being arrested simply because they do not have the money to pay the exorbitant private probation fees. This amounts to a modern-day "debtors' prison."
• Courts are giving too much authority to private probation officers in determining whether to issue arrest warrants. This is a conflict of interest because private probation officers stand to profit off of these probationers.
• There is no real transparency and no one knows exactly how much profit these companies are making. If private probation companies are going to continue to operate in Georgia, there must be more accountability.

As you know, freedom cannot protect itself. Thank you for taking the time to call and write  Governor Deal.

Sincerely,

Chad Brock

Staff Attorney/Legislative Counsel

By Ned Resnikoff

www.msnbc.com

Just before the close of Georgia's 2014 legislative session last week, the state's General Assembly granted final approval to a law that would allow state workers to drug test food stamp recipients. The law, H.B. 772, now awaits the signature of Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican.

An earlier version of the bill would have made drug testing mandatory for all food stamp recipients, but members of the House changed the bill's wording after a federal judge ruled that a similar law in Florida violated the Fourth Amendment. To avoid the same fate, H.B. 772 was rewritten to require "reasonable suspicion" that a food stamp recipient was using illegal drugs before caseworkers could order a drug test.

A spokesperson for the governor declined to comment on whether he would sign the bill. But Chad Brock, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Georgia, said he expected Gov. Deal to sign the law "based on the fact that he did sign a similar drug testing bill a couple years ago" which required drug testing of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) recipients. That law was never implemented.

If Deal does make the food stamp bill into law, an ACLU lawsuit is not out of the question.

"We still believe that the factors giving rise to individual suspicion are unconstitutionally broad and would likely be struck down in the courts," said Brock. Under the proposed law, reasonable suspicion can be aroused by something as simple as the food stamp recipient's "demeanor."

The law never specifies what a suspicious demeanor would look like. Its sponsor, Rep. Greg Morris, R-Vidalia, told msnbc it would be up to the Department of Human Services to go into further detail regarding what constitutes reasonable suspicion. H.B. 772 was crafted to give the department as much "flexibility" as possible in establishing guidelines.

"I'm not a law enforcement officer," said Morris. "I'm following the legal counsel to craft a bill that accomplishes what I want to accomplish."

In a statement published shortly after he first introduced the bill, Morris described it as "common sense legislation."

"Hard working Georgians expect their tax dollars to be used responsibly and efficiently," he said in the January 22 statement. "Under no circumstance should the government fund someone's drug habit."

But similar laws in other states haven't saved the government any money. Florida, for example, spent over $45,000 drug testing welfare recipients to little or no avail, before the state's mandatory drug testing law was found unconstitutional. Morris, at least, has found a way to make Georgia's own proposed drug-testing regime a little cheaper for the state: Under his law, any Medicaid recipient required to take a drug test would also be required to pay the state as much as $17 for the privilege.

"That should raise many different concerns," said Brock. "You're dealing with a population that's already economically distressed, and that's why they're seeking these benefits in the first place."

Morris rejected the notion that $17 would constitute a significant barrier to entry.

"That would be a small pass for entry into an entitlement program," he said. Food stamp benefit levels currently average out to approximately $1.49 per meal.

Georgia Food Bank Association executive director Danah Craft told msnbc the proposed law would further strain Georgia's overextended emergency food assistance infrastructure. Those who couldn't afford to pay for drug testing or tested positive for illegal drugs would come to rely more heavily on the Food Bank Association's member pantries, driving demand even higher than it already is.

"If they're eligible for food stamps, and then for whatever reason have difficulty getting them, then they turn to their local church pantries," said Craft.

Those pantries have already been buckling under the weight of federal-level food stamp cuts, a consistently high unemployment rate, and cuts to other state-level safety net programs. Craft estimated that the Food Bank Association's member pantries now distribute about 103 million pounds of food per year, up from the pre-recession average of 70 million pounds, "and it's still continuing to climb."

Yet Morris seems determined to limit food stamp eligibility even further. In a statement bemoaning the federal court ruling against Florida's mandatory drug testing law, Morris vowed to "work with the Senate on additional ideas to fight fraud, waste and abuse in our welfare system."

"The real problem, I believe, is eligibility," Morris told msnbc. "It's too easy to get on food stamps."

Many congratulations to Mayor Paul Bridges who joined our lawsuit against Georgia's anti-immigrant law for this well-deserved recognition!

By Jim Galloway

www.ajc.com

The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation announced

But the bigger surprise is Paul Bridges, the former mayor of Uvalda, Ga., population 592 - give or take a few souls.

The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation announced

But the bigger surprise is Paul Bridges, the former mayor of Uvalda, Ga., population 592 - give or take a few souls.

My AJC colleague Jeremy Redmond offers these details:

Bridges, the former mayor of the small, rural town of Uvalda in Montgomery County, served as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Georgia's Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011.

 

A Republican, Bridges argued he could face prosecution in connection with the law for transporting immigrants without legal status to churches and doctor appointments as he had done in the past. Federal courts ultimately struck down parts of the law and upheld others, including a provision giving police the option to check the immigration status of certain suspects.

 

"I'm just so very honored and humbled," said Bridges, who did not seek reelection when his mayoral term ended last year. "I only speak the truth on the immigration issues. It doesn't take courage to speak the truth."

 

Uvalda is in onion country, south of I-16 and Vidalia. Here's a slice from a 2011 column on Bridges and his community:

The primary argument for Bridges' inclusion in the lawsuit is that he could run afoul of Georgia's new law, which forbids "knowingly" transporting or harboring illegal immigrants. "Some of them I know are citizens - very young citizens. I'm not sure about their parents. I'm not sure about their grandparents," Bridges, 59, said during a state Capitol news conference.

 

(The authors of the legislation say the new law does not apply to Georgians who commit occasional acts of kindness. But this is why we have judges and courthouses.)
Yet Bridges has a more emotional reason for joining the legal action. He talks of Uvalda's many blended families - migrants who have married legal residents over the years, couples who have produced children.

 

"For instance, the grandmother who has papers. The daughter doesn't have papers. The grandson is a citizen," the mayor said. What happens, he asked, when a supporting husband is sent back to Mexico, leaving a dependent wife and child? Both are likely to end up on welfare.

 

Late last month, Bridges called for a "summit," held in the town's community center, to discuss the situation. Senate President pro tem Tommie Williams, R-Lyons, was there. So was state Rep. Greg Morris, R-Vidalia. Both men voted for HB 87.

 

There was general agreement on what has produced mixed families in the area. Seasonal harvests - onions, in particular - once required a short-term labor force that quickly moved on. But over the years, farmers have expanded their winter crop production.They've added turnips, collards, but especially cabbage.

 

Winter crops create the need for a year-round labor force, and vice versa. Year-round living leads to long-term relationships, and relationships create family trees.

 

Entire cabbage-patch families, if you will.

 

"Migrants used to travel around, but now that we created this produce market, they're staying all year," Williams said during that meeting.

 

Both Bush and Bridges will be honored at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on May 4.

The Georgia state legislature closed its session on March 20 and many immigrant women here heaved a sigh of relief. A trip to the grocery store or work or school won't mean risking arrest.

Hard to believe, but a small group of state lawmakers here recently tried to take away drivers' licenses from a group of people in the state with "deferred action" status under federal immigration procedures.

Those at risk included DREAMers with work permits under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and certain other people, including victims of domestic violence, with deferred action status granted for other reasons.

The failure of the bill, SB 404, is a victory for women's rights and an occasion to celebrate as part of women's history for many years to come.

Immigrant women in Georgia need a driver's license in order to navigate their lives with dignity and without dependence on others, including their abusers in the case of domestic violence survivors.

Had Georgia revoked the licenses, it would have become one of only three states to exclude an entire group of immigrants from having access to drivers' licenses. (Arizona excludes immigrants with deferred action from getting a license, as does Nebraska.)

For women fleeing abusive relationships, the revocation of licenses would have been disastrous, says Jessica Nunan, executive director of Caminar Latino, an organization based in Georgia that works with Latino families affected by violence.

"A driver's license removes one of many barriers for survivors who are trying to leave an abusive situation," says Nunan. "By enabling survivors to drive themselves to work, drive their kids to school, go to a grocery store and many other tasks many of us take for granted, we are helping them on their path towards safety and well-being."

A noncitizen victim of domestic violence or other crimes may seek a U visa if she assists the authorities in an investigation or prosecution. She may eventually apply for lawful permanent residence and citizenship. A statutory cap limits the number of U visas available to 10,000 in any given fiscal year.

Victims who cannot yet receive a U visa due solely to the annual cap restriction can use deferred action, which allows them to seek work while waiting their turn to get a U visa and permanent residence.

Another way the deferred action category arises for noncitizen domestic violence survivors is when they decide to seek immigration relief by applying for lawful permanent residence and, ultimately, citizenship, under the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA.

That process can take years. While they are waiting for VAWA protection they have deferred action and the majority of them obtain a work permit based on the deferred action grant.

The main group who just held on to their drivers' licenses is the Georgia DREAMers. These are young people brought to the United States as children, sometimes as infants. For many, Georgia is the only place they consider home.

In 2012, after many Georgia DREAMers received work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, state authorities allowed them to apply for driver's licenses so they could more easily go to school, drive their siblings to school, go to work and live with greater dignity.

To date, 10,882 people who have received deferred action have applied for Georgia drivers' licenses and state ID cards, according to the state's Driver Services Department.

Miriam Kim is hoping to soon join the ranks. Kim was born in Michoacán, México, and was brought to the United States when she was 3 years old. Now 26, Kim is married and has a 5-year-old son. This past fall, she began attending Freedom University, a nonprofit institution that provides college-level instruction to undocumented students denied admission to Georgia's public universities. She has applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and is awaiting the results.

"My son is starting public school in August, and I really can't see it working out unless I am granted a driver's license," says Kim. "I intend on being an active parent in his school, joining PTA and other similar organizations. This won't be feasible if I am unable to drive. I'd break the law getting my child to and from school. I'd be breaking the law when going to the grocery store to get the food my family consumes throughout the week. I'd be breaking the law when I attend Freedom U classes."

Call for an immediate moratorium