After U. of Georgia Killing, Lawmakers Seek Tougher Immigration Laws

A vigil at the University of Georgia for Laken Riley, who was killed on campus this month.

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Republican lawmakers in Georgia are pushing to toughen state laws that govern detentions of undocumented migrants after a killing at a college campus sent shock waves through the state.

Last Thursday, the body of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old woman, was found in a wooded area on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens. According to the authorities, the man charged in her killing, Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, is a migrant from Venezuela who crossed the Southern border in September 2022.

Officials said that Mr. Ibarra and Ms. Riley did not know each other before the encounter that ended in Ms. Riley’s death.

As an outpouring of grief ensued in Athens, immigration policies in Georgia have come under renewed scrutiny, with Republican lawmakers looking to exercise more state power over local law enforcement agencies. Mayor Kelly Girtz of Athens-Clarke County has faced criticism from conservatives for his welcoming stance toward migrants, and a bill in the State House that would harden Georgia’s existing laws on immigration has gained new momentum.

After crossing the border, Mr. Ibarra was arrested by the Border Patrol before being released with temporary permission to stay in the country. Since then, he has had a few run-ins with law enforcement. Last August, he was briefly arrested in New York City for driving a scooter without a license and with a child who was not wearing a helmet, according to an official there. Mr. Ibarra was also arrested in Georgia in October, the Athens-Clarke County Police said, in connection with a shoplifting case.

Under current state laws, law enforcement officials are encouraged to notify immigration authorities when they detain someone who is not a legal resident of the United States.

The new bill seeks to make that notification a requirement and to make law enforcement officials comply with requests by immigration authorities to detain people. J. Terry Norris, executive director of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association, said the bill was “an expansion of the existing law” but “has more teeth.”

To enforce the change, the bill says, the state would withhold funding or penalize officers who do not comply. On Tuesday, lawmakers advanced the measure out of a committee to the House floor.

Houston Gaines, a state representative who supports the bill and whose district includes parts of Athens, said that the measure was meant “to make sure that local governments are in total compliance with immigration law, with harsh penalties if they are not.”

If passed, the bill would bring Georgia a step closer to becoming one of the strictest states on immigration enforcement, like Texas and Florida, according to Lena Graber, a senior staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. Even in states without these laws, local officers often work with immigration authorities voluntarily, she said.

“It plays into a fight about federalism over civil rights issues, broadly,” Ms. Graber said, “and states really wanting more power to enact punitive laws like this.”

Though it is still in the early stages, the Georgia bill making its way through the State House seems to have a clear path to passage, said David Schaefer, the vice president of research and policy at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

“Language like this, and training around this new language in code, may produce an uptick in compliance with ICE detainers,” he said, adding that state lawmakers have clamped down on migration many times over the years — a pattern influenced, in part, by election-year politics.

Under the Biden administration, record numbers of migrants have crossed the Southern border — a fact that Republicans have wielded aggressively against President Biden and other Democratic lawmakers.

Many conservative politicians, including Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, an Athens native, have said the killing was linked to the immigration policies of President Biden. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, urged Mr. Biden to close the border two days after Ms. Riley’s death.

But national data has suggested that there is not a causal connection between immigration and crime in the country, and that growth in illegal immigration does not lead to higher local crime rates. Many studies have found that immigrants are less likely than people born in the United States to commit crimes.

On Wednesday, a small group of protesters interrupted a news conference and pinned the blame for Ms. Riley’s murder on Mr. Girtz, the mayor, saying he had “blood on your hands.” At times, their shouts drowned out his comments.

In 2019, he approved a resolution “in support of Athens immigrant, undocumented and Latinx community” stating that Athens-Clarke County “commits itself to working to reverse the damage” caused by white supremacy.

But the resolution had no mention of the term “sanctuary city,” which protesters on Wednesday claimed Athens had become. Mr. Girtz said that the city had not adopted any policies to create sanctuary status, though he acknowledged that the term’s meaning could vary from place to place.

One of the demonstrators, Laurie Waters Camp of Athens, said she was upset that Mr. Girtz had “put undocumented immigrants — his political agenda to bring them here, to welcome them here — above the safety and concern of our citizens and students.”

Adeel Hassan and Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting.