Georgia House passes bill requiring police to help arrest immigrants after student’s killing
ATLANTA — Georgia House Republicans are backing a bill that would require every eligible police and sheriff ’s department to help identify undocumented immigrants, arrest them and detain them for deportation.
The House voted 97-74 on Thursday for House Bill 1105 after police accused a Venezuelan man of beating a nursing student to death on the University of Georgia campus. The measure moves to the state Senate for more debate.
Jose Ibarra was arrested Friday on murder and assault charges in the Thursday death of 22-year-old Laken Riley. Ibarra, 26, is a Venezuelan citizen who immigration authorities say unlawfully crossed into the United States in 2022. It is unclear whether he has applied for asylum.
Riley was a nursing student at Augusta University’s Athens campus, after starting her college career at the
Athens campus of the University of Georgia. She was found dead Feb. 22 after a roommate reported that she didn’t return from a morning run in a wooded area.
The bill would also set new requirements for how jail officials should check with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to determine whether people are known to be in the country illegally. Republican
state Rep. Jesse Petrea of Savannah said that clause is needed to enforce existing state law requiring sheriffs to check with ICE on people who don’t appear to be American citizens.
“Fixing policy in the face of unspeakable tragedy is not politics,” said Rep. Houston Gaines, an Athens Republican.
“It’s doing the right thing to ensure something like this never occurs again.”
Sheriffs deny they are disregarding the law to check with ICE. The bill would make sheriffs who don’t check immigration status guilty of a misdemeanor. The bill would also deny state funding to jails and sheriffs that don’t cooperate.
Democrats warned the bill would cause people to be detained for long periods, would separate parents born elsewhere from U.S.born children and spark distrust of police in immigrant communities. They said it was rooted in a false narrative that immigrants bring crime, citing studies that show immigrants are less likely to be arrested.
“We want justice for what happened to Laken Riley. We don’t want violent people who are here legally or not legally to be on the streets,” said Rep. Esther Panitch, a Sandy Springs Democrat. “But this bill won’t do it. This bill won’t close our borders. It will not make us safer, and it will not make women safer.”