Newspaper Page Text
I
How Will [HUB
Be Felt in Athens?
J; ,
t
f 4
Griselda, a 34-year-old salesperson
with two children who came to the
United States as a teenager to be with
her mother, HB 87 seems to affect every moment of her life
as an undocumented immigrant. She desperately explains how
hard it is for people to understand "waking up every morning
and driving 45 minutes to work, not knowing if you are going
to make it home to your family" for fear of deportation. She
calls her husband to say when she is leaving work, and he cau
tions her not to speed; not to take certain roads.
Griselda has lived in the United States longer than she did
as a youth in Mexico. Her children have never lived anywhere
but Georgia. She pays tax on her income at work. For more
than 10 years, her mother has paid property tax on a home
that she nearly lost when Griselda's stepfather was deported
earlier this year. Griselda doesn't know what life would be like
in Mexico or where she would begin. She speaks
English very well, but says more than once, "I'm
still dreaming in Spanish." She has a driver's
license. To get it, she drove with several cousins
in a van to Washington state, where they could
acquire driver's licenses without papers. Turned
out their epic journey only got them permits,
and they had to make the trip a second time to
get the real thing.
HB 87 makes Griselda even more worried
about her status than she already was. What
if she is stopped, and her valid driver's license
from Washington is not enough to avoid an
inquiry into her immigration status? She keeps
her license hidden unless she absolutely has to
use it. She is embarrassed that her children have
had to learn the necessity of lying to the police.
"They know," she says, "even if lying is bad,
mom will have to lie to the police and say she is
from Washington if the police stop her."
Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas
Thrash blocked two major components of HB
87 that were due to go into effect July 1. The
controversial "Arizona-style" immigration law,
contains a so-called "show-me-your-papers" pro
vision empowering local and state law enforce
ment to investigate the immigration status of
any person suspected of committing a crime who cannot pro
vide identification indicating legal presence within the United
States. This and a second provision criminalizing anyone know
ingly "transporting" or "harboring" an undocumented person in
Georgia were blocked from going into effect, pending the out
come of a lawsuit brought by the Georgia Latino Alliance for
Human Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union, among
others. The judge's temporary hold on these provisions comes
with a temporary sigh of relief for many business owners, farm
ers, workers and families living in and around Athens. But it
does little to address what immigrants are most worried about.
Judge Thrash echoed a concern about the law that's heard
repeatedly from those it targets: "The apparent legislative
intent is to create such a climate of hostility, fear, mistrust
and insecurity that all illegal aliens will leave Georgia." But
what does such a climate actually achieve?
the way to the J&J Flea Market a week before HB
V-JJL JL 87 was due to go into effect, at the Loop 10 exit
onto 441 North, a couple of Athens-Clarke County police offi
cers were stopping people in their cars. A heavy silence perme
ated one old car as the driver pulled over: three of the four
passengers lacked papers. But they were waved on. It seemed
the officers had been checking for licenses and seatbelts, not
impaired driving, early Sunday morning. At the market, news
of the police stopping people on the road spread like wildfire
among the vendors and customers. No one took the news
lightly. As people reached for their phones to warn friends and
family, the faces and voices were grave, forlorn, wearied.
HB 87's considerable economic impacts on small busi
nesses in Athens began before the date it was slated to go
into effect. Sammy Espinoza owns Los Amigos, a grocery store
off Chase Street. He is among several local Latino business
owners who say they have seen about a 30 percent decrease .
in business since April, when Governor Nathan Deal signed the
bill. Another of Espinoza's businesses, Sammy's Auto Sales, has
taken a more considerable hit: sales are down from 12 or 14
cars to three or four per week. Of course, the broader economic
situation is at work here, but Espinoza has heard from some
customers looking to pay off their outstanding debts, and oth
ers who are wary of making purchases because of uncertainties
about HB 87.
Nearly everyone who does business with the Athens-area
Latino community seems to have heard of families who have
already left because of the law. Roberto Arteaga, who runs the
Jalisco grocery on Jefferson Highway, has heard of numerous
people leaving, particularly in the last couple of weeks. The
economic downturn has hurt his business, leaving his sales
down 50 percent from two years ago—but 25 percent of this
driving without a license, and "would do anything to help [her
family] get papers," she says. But in the months since HB 87
was passed. Nancy's father has left for the Carolinas to look
for work and to explore the possibility of moving the family.
If they do leave, Nancy's boss might have to close the chicken
house. If the climate continues to become more hostile and
insecure, more stable immigrants may begin to leave in greater
numbers, and the damage to the agricultural industry in North
Georgia could start to follow the trend swimming up from
South Georgia.
ACC police depend on good communication with the Latino
community to keep the city safe, but since the law's pas
sage, many in that community have been frightened to make
contact with them. Chief Joseph Lumpkin understands HB 87
as he does any number of other statutes his force must incor
porate into its work. For Lumpkin, HB 87 does not necessitate
any additional training beyond standard shift
briefings, nor does it allow the police to set
up immigration checkpoints, or in any way to
target specifically any ethnicity. If the HB 87
provisions Judge Thrash has temporarily blocked
eventually do go into effect. Lumpkin says the
ACC police department will follow the statute
"how it is written into law." At the same time,
Lumpkin explains, "we are going to continue to
stress to our officers tc enforce the law within
the constitution of the State of Georgia and the
United States, as well as the case law and statu
tory law of those governments... We have never
oeen a carry-your-papers country."
But, while the reassurance that the ACCPD
will not set up checkpoints may be welcomed,
it can be of little comfort to someone like
Griselda, who carries a driver's license like a tal
isman and a curse—who understands HB 87 to
mean, no matter how much she tries to do right,
"they don't want us here."
At
A young protester is arrested after stopping traffic at a demonstration outside the state Capitol June 28.
drop-off has come in the last month alone. The owner of the
Chavita grocery on Oneta Street said recently that his business
is down by half, and that the day before, four families had
come to tell him they were leaving for Texas. "As we get closer
to the law [going into effect]," says the owner of a salon
at the flea market, "there are fewer and fewer customers."
According to the intentions Judge Thrash surmised, the law is
working even without going into effect: undocumented people
are leaving.
But
only some of them. It doesn't seem to be the
people who have moved away that have hurt
business the most, but rather the fact that people are afraid
to leave their houses: that they are staying home and saving
their money in case of an emergency that could break up a
family. The manager of the Pendergrass Flea Market explains
the situation clearly: "Right now, people are highly concerned
about families being split." He says that there are two types of
undocumented immigrants. On the one hand, there are "people
who are transient workers: temporary." These people are choos
ing to live elsewhere, and it's having a drastic effect on the
labor force in South Georgia. "On the other hand," he explains,
"there are families, who are stable, with children, who have
built their lives here." These families are going to stay to see
what happens. Demoralization of these families—by creating a
climate of fear, mistrust and insecurity—is the primary way in
which the law is "working" as intended.
The effects of this demoralization and uncertainty among
immigrant families with longer-standing ties and stable work
may remain to be seen. A young woman named Nancy cuts hair
in a salon on the weekends, but during the week she works
at a chicken house in Commerce with her family. The owner
of the chicken house once "bonded out" Nancy's father for
the state Capitol Tuesday, June 28,
amid shouts of "Undocumented,
unafraid!" and "They say 'go back,' we say 'fight
back!'" several undocumented young people
from Athens were center-stage in a protest
against HB 87. Ambitious for Equal Rights—a group that
began at Cedar Shoals High School—joined the call led by the
Georgia Undocumented Youth Alliance for greater access to
education for people who come to this country as children and
grow up here, no matter what their official immigration sta
tus. The rally began with six undocumented youths, who were
brought to the United States between the ages of two and 10,
speaking about the barriers to education they face. More than
200 people rallied outside the Capitol after the speeches, then
marched through downtown Atlanta and the Georgia State
campus. When the march circled back to the Capitol, the six
speakers, still wearing graduation gowns, blocked an intersec
tion with a banner reading "We will no longer remain in the
shadows." Though hundreds of people were blocking the inter
section with them, the six students wearing gowns and sitting
on the banner were the only ones arrested and removed by the
police.
Leeidy Solis, an undocumented 16-year-old from Athens,
was among those risking deportation to make her voice heard.
"My mom was really, really nervous; she couldn't eat, couldn't
sleep," she said after being released. "I've been risking getting
deported since I got here, so why be scared now?" When asked
how she felt preparing to take the risks of making such a pub
lic stand, Solis explained, "I've been... 'out' as undocumented.
It doesn't really change nothing—I've been here, and I'm
going to be here. I wasn't scared at all. I felt powerful... I'm
here, and I'm fighting for my people."
If the legislative intention of laws like HB 87 is to instill
fear and insecurity among undocumented Latinos in the United
States, then perhaps the courage of young people like Leeidy
Solis is evidence that not everybody is intimidated.
Richard Milligan
JULY 6, 2011-FLAGPOLE.COM 7
