Immigration, elections were Georgia’s top stories of ’06

Published 10:07 pm Saturday, December 30, 2006

ATLANTA (AP) — One of the most heated national debates of 2006 was over U.S. immigration policy, and Georgia was at the center as it saw the largest percentage increase in illegal immigrants of any state and lawmakers passed some of the nation’s strictest measures discouraging the influx.

The state also made national headlines as some local governments set their own rules targeting illegal immigrants, federal agents started conducting raids in the state, immigrant laborers organized a work stoppage, and 50,000 protesters marched in suburban Atlanta. About 150 National Guard troops from Georgia also were deployed to help fortify the Mexico border, and the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case over allegations that a Calhoun company hired thousands of illegal immigrants and depressed wages.

Not a week went by without a news story about the state’s struggles with illegal immigration. As a result, it was selected by Georgia’s daily newspapers and radio and television stations as the state’s top story of the year.

Twenty-seven Georgia members of The Associated Press — 20 newspapers and seven television and radio stations — participated in the news cooperative’s annual survey of top state stories. One-third of the news outlets had illegal immigration at the top of their lists, from Valdosta to Cherokee County.

Other stories on most lists were the year’s elections, the 48th Brigade’s homecoming after a deadly year in Iraq, Delta Air Lines’ efforts to pull out of bankruptcy, the fight over whether to require voters to show photo IDs, and the death of Coretta Scott King.

At the center of the state’s immigration story was the Republican-controlled Legislature’s passage of measures aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of Georgia, where at least 50,000 move each year in search of jobs, according to federal estimates.

“We want to demagnetize Georgia,” said Sen. Chip Rogers of Woodstock, who sponsored the sweeping state law that includes new sanctions for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and the end of some state services to adults who can’t verify that they’re in the country legally.

While supporters have hailed the state laws as “a national standard,” critics called them an embarrassment and bad for business.

“It’s a big black eye that will hurt Georgia’s economy,” said Jerry Gonzalez, president of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, a group that leads immigration rights efforts.

As the massive influx of mostly Hispanic immigrants reshapes Georgia’s racial and labor dynamics, police, lawmakers, businesses and ordinary citizens continue to adjust.

Feeling abandoned by the federal government as immigration reform stalled in Congress, cities and counties took matters in their own hands. Most recently, Cherokee County started requiring landlords to check the immigration status of their tenants.

Other counties passed ordinances limiting the number of residents in single-family dwellings as they’ve seen a rise in immigrants crowding homes, and police in Marietta, Trenton and other cities were asked to enforce local loitering laws to make it more difficult for people to pick up day laborers.

In response, immigrant rights groups increased their efforts, leading voter registration drives, work and shopping boycotts and protest marches that drew comparisons with the civil rights protests of the 1960s.

While most of the provisions in the state’s new immigration law won’t go into effect until next summer, Gov. Sonny Perdue and most other state Republicans emphasized the sweeping legislation during their successful election campaigns — which made up the state’s No. 2 story of the year.

It started with July’s primaries when former national Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed was upset in his first run for public office, losing the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor to state Sen. Casey Cagle of Gainesville. Meanwhile, Democrats picked Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor over Secretary of State Cathy Cox as their candidate for governor, and also ousted U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney in favor of former DeKalb County Commissioner Hank Johnson after McKinney got into a scuffle with a Capitol Hill police officer.

In November, Perdue was easily re-elected, beating Taylor with 58 percent of the vote. Republicans also won the offices of lieutenant governor (Cagle) and secretary of state (Karen Handel) for the first time. While their party won control of Congress, Democratic Reps. Jim Marshall of Macon and John Barrow of Savannah barely held onto their seats.

The No. 3 story was Delta’s bumpy ride during its first full year in bankruptcy. The Atlanta-based airline won a judge’s approval to terminate its pilot pensions, and a threatened pilots strike — which would have almost certainly ended the company — was averted after an agreement on long-term pay and benefit cuts. Then, US Airways made a hostile takeover bid that would create the nation’s largest carrier, but Delta’s board rejected it while announcing plans to emerge from bankruptcy as a single carrier in the spring of 2007.

Celebrations and ceremonies were held throughout the state as part of the year’s No. 4 story — the homecoming of the Georgia National Guard’s 48th Infantry Brigade after a yearlong tour in Iraq that killed 26 of its 4,500 members. It was the largest deployment of the state’s Guard troops since World War II.

The Legislature’s passage of some of the nation’s toughest sex-offender laws and the court fight that ensued was the No. 5 story. A judge blocked enforcement of one provision that bans sex offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of school bus stops until each school board designates the stops. Opponents now are seeking to block similar restrictions on how close sex offenders can be to churches.

For the second year in a row, a judge threw out a Georgia law requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls — the No. 6 story. Lawmakers had revised the law to address the concerns of a judge who rejected a similar version in 2005. The case now is headed to the Georgia Supreme Court.

The death of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow from complications of ovarian cancer was No. 7. Coretta Scott King, who died at the age of 78, became the first woman and first black person to lie in honor in the Georgia Capitol. Four U.S. presidents and other notable figures saluted “the first lady of the civil rights movement” at her funeral in Lithonia.

No. 8 was the convictions and imprisonment of several former Georgia political figures.

Former state schools superintendent Linda Schrenko was found guilty of embezzling education funds to help pay for a face lift and her failed 2002 campaign for governor. She got eight years in prison.

Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell was convicted of tax evasion, but acquitted of bribery and racketeering charges stemming from claims that he lined his pockets with payoffs from contractors while leader of the state’s largest city in the 1990s. Campbell got 2 1/2 years in prison.

A string of shootings by police in the Atlanta area made up the No. 9 story, receiving votes from media outlets across the state. The most high-profile shooting left an elderly Atlanta woman dead and three Atlanta officers wounded as plainclothes officers served a no-knock warrant in search of drugs at the woman’s home. Also, DeKalb County police shot and killed 12 people during the year, outpacing much larger departments across the country.

There’s a mix of good news and bad news behind the No. 10 story. The good news was Kia Motor Corp. finally broke ground on a planned 2,893-employee auto plant near West Point. The bad news was General Motors announced plans to close its Doraville plant and Ford closed its Hapeville plant, with the last Taurus rolling off the assembly line. Those Atlanta-area plants together employed about 5,000.

Stories close to making the list included the water woes associated with the drought and accidental release of too much water from the state’s major reservoirs along the Chattahoochee River, and the year’s events surrounding the JonBenet Ramsey case, including the death of JonBenet’s mother, Patsy, in Roswell and former Georgia resident John Mark Karr claiming he was with JonBenet when she died 10 years ago.