Georgia SB529 working?

Wow! This is encouraging.

This:

Day laborer Orlando Rojas, standing in the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot near Norcross, stared down as the Gwinnett Police officer lectured him about loitering.

"You come back here again," said Cpl. Scott Pihera, tapping the hood of his squad car, "you go with me."

Rojas, 41, stuffed a written warning into his pocket as if it were the last straw. "I'm leaving," said Rojas, a native of Peru. "To the north, maybe to Montana."

And this:

It's the employers who have changed. Crew chiefs have grown increasingly skittish about hiring illegal immigrants, they said, prompting more workers to try places like Florida and New Orleans instead.

And this:

Fear of deportation is at an all-time high, she said, as rumors of raids by immigration agents sweep through the community almost daily. "I think it's created a mental sickness, where people are depressed," she said. "Who wants to be thinking any minute you're going to be arrested?"

And this:

Efren Olivares, of Duluth, said the remodeling company where he's worked the past three years let him and 15 others go last month because they couldn't prove they were here legally. The Mexico native said the company feared a review of its employment records in light of the renewed focus on illegal immigration at the state and federal level.

"The new law has affected me," Olivares said Friday as he waited for work at the labor hall in Duluth.

And this:

The employer angst was evident Wednesday as a yellow moving van pulled into a Chevron parking lot where about three dozen day laborers were waiting near Norcross. At first the driver said he needed several workers. But, upon spotting a police car in the distance, he waved the laborers off and peeled out of the lot. "He's scared," said Ramon Cordova, who watched in disappointment as another potential job rolled down South Norcross Tucker Road.

And finally this:

Cordova, who has entered the United States illegally several times before, said he's never had such a hard time finding work. If something doesn't change soon, Cordova said, he's going back to Guanajuato.

This gives me hope. Our sell-out president keeps offering the paper tiger argument that "we can't round up and deport 11 million immigrants". Well, Dubya, let me dumb it down for you: You don't have to deport them. Suppress the demand and they'll just go home on their own dime. It'll be like a "truco mágico". One day they're here and the next day they're magically gone.

Even though the bill was watered down somewhat, it is still considered to be one of the toughest in the US. Chip Rogers (the bill's author), however, made a great point:

Rogers said the perception that police are on the lookout for illegal immigrants and the people who hire them is a bonus. "If we're making people who are violating the law fear law enforcement," Rogers said, "then I think we're doing our job."

Is it any wonder that the GOP in Georgia is on such solid ground? They have listened to their constituents and are being supported and rewarded for it. Perhaps the national GOP could learn a lesson or two from what is happening in Georgia.