Today at the Capitol: Immigration

Senate Bill 40  was heard today in the House Judiciary Non Civil Committee. This bill is similar to House Bill 87, it targets illegal immigrants and employers who hire them. Instead of debating the Senate version of the bill, the house amended the bill and simply replaced the whole bill with HB 87. So currently SB 40 is the exact same bill as HB 87. We will have to wait and see what the Senate thinks of this.

Currently Immigration is a hot button issue in Georgia. I pulled the following passage from the Georgia Encyclopedia to give a historical perspective on immigration.

"During the Trusteeship (1732-52), the overwhelming majority of Georgia immigrants—more than 3,000 in number—arrived from Europe. Around two-thirds of these pioneers were funded by the Trustees, who offered them a passage across the Atlantic, provisions for one year, tools, and a tract of land in return for their labor. Initially the settlers tended to congregate according to their ethnic origins. Highland Scots settled a Celtic outpost at Darien on the southern frontier. Lutheran Salzburgers swiftly organized a productive and dutiful township at Ebenezer to the north. English folk, many of them Londoners, dominated Savannah and its surrounding villages, along with a large number of Rhineland Germans and a few Lowland Scots. In and around these regional settlements were smaller enclaves of immigrants, including Spanish-speaking Sephardic Jews, French-speaking Swiss, pious Moravians, Irish convicts, and a handful of Piedmont Italians and Russians."