Local Sheriff Department Allowed to Enforce Federal Immigration Laws

The Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department has become the fifth agency in Georgia to be accepted into a federal program that allows local and state officials to enforce federal immigration laws.

The Gwinnett Sheriff's Department is one of 11 new law enforcement agencies nationwide whose acceptance into the Homeland Security Department program was announced Friday.

The acceptance of Gwinnett Sheriff Butch Conway's application was hailed as a victory by anti-illegal immigration groups but decried by civil liberties and human rights groups.

The 11 new participants are the first to sign a new, standardized agreement since the program was overhauled following an investigation earlier this year by the Government Accountability Office.

(Associated Press)

GA And Other States Get Stimulus Oversight

Georgia is one in a group of 16 states getting federal oversight of how it uses stimulus money, but not out of a reason of suspicion. The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, is following these particular states because since they hold a majority of the nation’s population, the group is getting roughly two-thirds of the stimulus funds.

Of the nearly $800-billion of federal stimulus money available, Georgia officials say the state in the end could realize around $7-billion. Bert Brantley with the Governor’s office says some aspects of Georgia’s own stimulus accountability model are being used by federal officials:

"The GAO actually took a lot of what we were doing, a lot of the templates and the documents we’re using to track the spending and are sharing that with other states as well—kind of a model for other states to look at and use. They really like the way that we had begun our work in tracking and reviewing the spending."

Governor Perdue earlier this year announced Georgians could track the state’s federal stimulus spending through the website: stimulusaccountability.ga.gov.

The GAO already issued a first review at the end of April. Brantley says the next will follow sometime in July, with reviews to continue for the next few years.