ATLANTA, GA - Two years ago, nursing student Laken Riley went for a jog at the University of Georgia. She never made it back as she was killed by an illegal alien allowed into the country by the Biden administration. Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan national, was found guilty in November 2024 on 10 counts, including felony murder. Laken died from blunt force trauma and asphyxiation. She was also raped.
Now, Fox News Digital reports that Georgia Republicans have introduced a bill to hold sanctuary jurisdictions financially liable for damage and crimes committed by illegal aliens.
State Rep. Houston Gaines, who is running for Congress in the district where Laken Riley was killed, is one of six Republicans sponsoring the bill. Gaines says the bill will hold local governments’ “feet to the fire” when they refuse to enforce the law.
“You’ve seen these issues all across the country, in Minneapolis, certainly in Los Angeles…where you have really liberal local governments that just simply aren’t enforcing the law, and so we’re going to put an end to it here in Georgia,” Gaines said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
The state of Georgia already bans sanctuary policies at a local level; the bill, if passed, will allow citizens, including property and business owners, to seek financial compensation from local governments for damages caused by ill-advised sanctuary-style policies.
The bill stipulates that property owners and leaseholders can claim compensation from jurisdictions that adopt a “policy, pattern, or practice” of failing to comply with Georgia’s immigration enforcement laws, declining to enforce laws against activities such as illegal public camping or shoplifting, or allowing a public nuisance that harms property.
While Georgia doesn’t have any sanctuary policies per se, Gaines said that cities such as Atlanta and Athens, where the University of Georgia is located, have previously been lax in enforcement.
“Georgia is a red state, but we do have blue jurisdictions,” he said. “I get calls all the time in Athens of a business or a family who’s woken up to someone in their front yard or at a business where they’ve had someone break in overnight. There are all sorts of issues where these liberal local governments frankly just aren’t doing their job and not enforcing the law.
“What we’re doing here is making sure that people across the state know that if your local government is not doing their job, it’s time for the state to step up and make sure they do it, and the way to do that is hit them in the pocketbook.”
If the bill passes, Georgia would join Arizona, where in 2024 voters approved a measure allowing property owners to apply for property tax refunds if their local city, town, or county fails to enforce certain public nuisance laws that cost the property owner money. In Georgia, citizens and other victims could file lawsuits directly for reimbursement.
The bill, Gaines said, will serve as a deterrent against liberal jurisdictions that don’t enforce immigration law.
“Our whole goal here is not for all these refunds to occur; it’s just for local governments to enforce the existing law on the books,” he said. “If a local jurisdiction is getting complaints, they simply clean it up and fix what they’re doing wrong so that you don’t see repeated complaints.”
Gaines believes Georgia’s bill could serve as a model for other states.
“I would encourage other states to do this because it is something that I believe will work and will hold local governments accountable if they’re failing to enforce their own laws, and putting their own citizens in dangerous situations…that’s what we’re trying to avoid with this legislation.”
Gaines is running for the House seat currently held by Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), who is running for the Republican nomination to oppose incumbent Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff in the November election.
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