June 8, 2011
Latino concerns
Mayor meets with Hispanic community
Charles Oliver
charlesoliver@daltoncitizen.com
The Dalton Daily Citizen Wed Jun 08, 2011
Fear. Anxiety. Concern.
Those were just a few of the emotions many speakers expressed Tuesday night at meeting hosted by the Coalition of Latino Leaders (CLILA) at its headquarters on Morris Street.
Around 100 people, mostly members of Dalton’s Hispanic community, met with Mayor David Pennington and officials from the Dalton Police Department. The meeting was sparked by a concern about roadblock check points conducted by the police department, but the discussion ranged over a number of topics related to the state’s new immigration law and how it is already having an impact on the local Hispanic community.
The Rev. Gilbardo Guerrero, pastor of Dalton’s World Friendship Church, said his church once had almost 600 members but now has less than half that.
He said the numbers began to drop after the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office adopted the 287(g) program three years ago, which allows the sheriff’s office to determine if people who are booked into the jail are in the country illegally.
But he says the numbers leaving have really jumped in just the last few weeks, after the General Assembly passed a new law aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration. That law, among other things, requires employers to take part in a federal program that helps determine if new hires are legally allowed to work in the United States.
“I’ve got people moving to Chattanooga. I’ve got people moving to Cleveland,” he said. “They were just waiting for the kids to finish their school year.”
Several speakers said that the policies are breaking up families.
Leslie, a 13-year-old girl, spoke of how her mother was stopped at a roadblock and when police saw she didn’t have a license they took her to jail where they determined she was an illegal alien and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Under a new interpretation of Georgia law handed down by the state attorney general’s office earlier this year, those found driving without a license must now be taken into custody and fingerprinted. That means that, in Whitfield County, illegal aliens caught driving without a license could be deported.
Spencer Zeiger, a professor at Dalton State College, said he has two sons adopted from Honduras and one of them was recently stopped by law enforcement. Zeiger said that his son was held by the side of the road for around an hour while officials tried to determine whether he was an illegal alien.
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