Immigrants in Georgia initiate lawsuit against the 287th Amendment

Three Georgia immigrants have filed a lawsuit challenging a state law that allows local authorities to enforce federal immigration law. They also seek to have the lawsuit declared a class action so that many other immigrants will also be represented.

According to experts, the lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in Atlanta, would be the first to directly challenge the legitimacy of 287(g), an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program that trains local officers to enforce federal immigration law. Since 2006, more than 180,000 immigrants who are in the country illegally have been identified and processed for deportation through this program.

The lawsuit involves ICE Director John Morton, Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren, a Georgia Department of Public Safety investigator and other officials.

According to an AP report, the lawsuit is intended to cover "all Hispanic individuals who have been or will be detained and questioned within the state of Georgia" by local authorities who are enforcing federal immigration law under the 287(g) program.

The lawsuit alleges that ICE has failed to train and supervise police in Cobb County, where the immigrants who have filed the lawsuit live, and that ICE therefore improperly delegated its power to local authorities.