Senate passes bill forcing GA sheriffs to report arrests of undocumented immigrants

ATLANTA — A day after the parents of murder victim Laken Riley spoke before Georgia lawmakers, the state Senate passed a bill forcing Georgia sheriffs to alert immigration authorities if they suspect they have an undocumented immigrant in their jail.

Police arrested Jose Ibarra and charged him with Riley’s murder. He was in the country illegally and apparently spent some time behind bars in another state but was released.

Republicans insist her death was preventable. Democrats believe this bill does nothing but demonize immigrants.

“I stand by you a broken man. Part of my purpose has been taken,” Riley’s father Jason Riley told the state Senate.

Senate Republicans introduced their bill that would force Georgia sheriffs to alert federal immigration officials if they think they have a foreign national inside their jail.

If a sheriff “willfully and knowingly” refuses to do that, they could face a misdemeanor charge for the first offense … and then a high and aggravated misdemeanor charge for the second.

Their state funding could also be in jeopardy.

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“This has penalties put in place when people do not follow the law. They willfully and knowingly are not following the law. There’s penalties throughout that,” state Sen. John Albers told Channel 2′s Richard Elliot.

But the bill was met with some fiery Democratic opposition.

“But is it just to punish thousands of other men, women and children whose only connection to the crime is a shared immigration status with the perpetrator?” state Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes said.

Republicans insist Riley’s murder might have been prevented if laws like this one existed -- something Atlanta Democrat Jason Esteves disagrees with.

“Let me say the Laken Riley tragedy is in fact a tragedy, and I’m empathetic to that, but this bill would not have prevented it,” Esteves said.

But Albers insists the bill had nothing to do with that crime and everything to do with holding sheriffs accountable for following the law.

“This is not a knee-jerk reaction. This bill has been worked on for many years. In fact, it was introduced in the House last year before the very avoidable death of my constituent Laken Riley,” Albers said.

This is not the final passage.

The Senate tweaked the bill in order to get the support of the Georgia Sheriff’s Association, so it heads back over to the House next week.

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