Tough Immigration Bill Becomes Law in Georgia

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has signed some of the country's toughest anti-illegal immigration measures into law. The Georgia law—largely modeled on Arizona's—allows local police to question certain suspects about their immigration status, penalizes people who knowingly transport illegal immigrants, and makes using fake ID to get a job a felony punishable by up to 15 years in jail, reports the Atlanta Journal-Consitution.

Part or all of similar laws have been blocked in Arizona and Utah and opponents have promised to fight Georgia's, although its authors say they have done their best to see off potential legal challenges. "States don’t have the legal authority to deport. We don’t have the legal authority to secure our borders,” says one of the bill's architects, Republican state lawmaker Matt Ramsey. "But our goal is, within a constitutional framework, to eliminate incentives for illegal aliens to cross into our state." (More illegal immigration stories.)