Latest news with #GeorgiaLaw
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Critics of Georgia's abortion ban push for clarity after another case makes international news
Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes speaks at against Georgia's abortion law at the state Capitol. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder Georgia Democrats are calling for clarity in the state's abortion law as the case of Adriana Smith continues to grab headlines worldwide. Undiagnosed blood clots in Smith's brain left the 30-year-old nurse brain dead months ago, but doctors have kept her organs functioning through medical devices. Family members told media outlets Smith's body was being kept alive despite no chance for her to recover because she is pregnant and removing her from life support could violate the state's ban on most abortions after six weeks. Georgia's top lawyer disagrees with that interpretation of the law. 'There is nothing in the LIFE Act that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death,' Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement. 'Removing life support is not an action 'with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy.'' But a public statement does not come with the force of law, said Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, a Duluth Democrat, and when it comes to the practice of medicine, legal gray areas can lead to tragic outcomes. Speaking at a press conference Thursday at the state Capitol, Islam Parkes called on Carr to issue a legally binding opinion to answer a series of questions she said would spell out when doctors could treat a pregnant woman in a way that could harm or kill the fetus: Is a hospital legally required to maintain a brain dead pregnant woman on life support? What precisely constitutes a medical emergency under the law? Under what conditions does a pregnancy meet the threshold of incompatibility with life? How does the law affect legal standing of advanced directives and end-of-life planning for pregnant Georgians? 'These questions are not theoretical,' Islam Parkes said. 'They're urgent, because as long as this law remains vague, we will continue to see families traumatized, providers criminalized and patients left behind. Doctors are being forced to make impossible choices, families are trapped in grief and fear and women are dying.' Islam Parkes was referencing two high-profile deaths, Georgians Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, who both died in 2022 after suffering complications from taking abortion pills. Thurman died in a hospital after doctors waited nearly a day to perform a routine procedure to remove fetal tissue from her uterus; Miller died after family members said she was afraid to seek medical care because of the recently enacted law. Democrats said there are likely more cases that do not end in death. of Gwinnett said she had already picked out a name for her unborn daughter, Sawyer Nicole Christian, but in March, a day after Maruscak held a gender reveal party, she discovered her daughter's heart had stopped beating. 'In a matter of seconds, we went from preparing to welcome her into our lives to trying to figure out how to say goodbye,' she said at the Capitol press conference. 'My doctor was sympathetic, but because of the restrictive abortion laws, my care was limited to a list of abortion clinics. No follow-up plan, no guidance and no support. Over the next two days, I called clinic after clinic, continuously having to repeat and relive that Sawyer did not have a heartbeat. My insurance recommended me to go to the emergency department because of increasing septic symptoms, so I did. I spent seven hours there in pain, in grief, and in shock, only to be discharged with no treatment, no resolution and no care.' Maruscak said she spent more than a week carrying her daughter's remains. 'What happened to me is not rare. It is not an outlier. It's happening every day,' she said. 'One in four women experience a miscarriage. Over half of them need medical intervention to complete it safely. This is not just a political issue, it's a medical one.' Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones made no bones about the party's ultimate goal of repealing the six-week abortion ban, which went into effect in 2022 after the United States Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion and left the matter to states. 'As that fight continues, we must stand with and demand clarification from our governor and attorney general,' Jones said. 'What rights do women have under this law? Georgians have been asking this question. We as legislators have been asking this question and the people standing here today have been asking this question, yet Georgia's leadership has stayed silent.' The author of Georgia's abortion bill, Acworth Republican Sen. Ed Setzler, accused Democrats of playing politics in an attempt to drum up headlines. 'My heart goes out to Adriana, her family, and the young son inside of her who is struggling for his life,' Setzler said. 'Nabilah Islam Parkes and the Democrats are sickening at the depths they will go to drag Adriana's hurting family, who is trying to save the life of their grandson, through a sick political debate about expanding abortion.' 'The Democrats are making attacks as loudly as they can to try to seize media attention,' he added. Conservative radio host and Georgia Life Alliance board member Martha Zoller said tragic cases like Maruscak's are not the result of the state's abortion ban – sometimes referred to by supporters as the 'heartbeat bill' – but of hospitals misunderstanding or misapplying it. 'Once you've had a miscarriage or you're in the process of a miscarriage, there is no heartbeat, so there should be no reason for care to be withheld or anything like that,' she said. 'That's the over-legalization of the medical care business with not allowing providers to be providers and to do what's best for patients. And that has nothing to do with the heartbeat bill. That has to do with the structure at the hospital. The care for a miscarriage is not denoted as something that's a method of abortion in the heartbeat bill, and once you've had a miscarriage, there is no heartbeat, so the heartbeat bill doesn't come into play.' 'It's a travesty that the Democratic caucus continues to mislead women and scare them for their own political purposes,' she added. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Associated Press
5 days ago
- General
- Associated Press
Georgia Supreme Court upholds ban on those under 21 from carrying handguns in public
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a state law Wednesday that bans most people under 21 from carrying a handgun in public. Under Georgia law, anyone ages 18 to 20 years old can possess handguns on their own property, in their car, at their business or for hunting, fishing and sport shooting. Those in the age group who have been trained by the military are exempt. Thomas Stephens, a 20-year-old man from Lumpkin County, sued Georgia after a probate court denied him a weapons carry license in 2023, when he was 18. Stephens asked the state to stop enforcing that law, which he said violated his constitutional rights. A trial court granted the state's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The Georgia Supreme Court denied his appeal, noting Georgia's Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms but lets the General Assembly regulate how they are carried. Georgia has some of the loosest gun laws in the country. The decision comes in the aftermath of heated debates about gun control in the state after a mass shooting at Apalachee High School, northeast of Atlanta, where a 14-year-old boy stands accused of killing two teachers and two students and wounding several others last Sept. 4. Stephens asked the state Supreme Court to pick one of two federal legal tests used for Second Amendment challenges, 'strict scrutiny' or 'history and tradition,' to evaluate whether Georgia's law is constitutional. The decision, written by Justice Andrew Pinson, says those standards are 'not viable substitutes' for determining what the text of the state Constitution originally meant. Unlike Georgia, the U.S. Constitution doesn't explicitly let legislatures regulate how people carry guns. Pinson wrote in the decision that construing the meaning of a constitutional provision 'requires careful attention to not only the language of the clause in question, but also its broader legal and historical context.' Stephens' attorney John Monroe argued the law infringed on his client's rights. He also called it an arbitrary law because military training focuses on weapons other than handguns. But he knew unraveling the law would be an uphill battle. 'It's not unexpected because there's over a century of precedent that was against us,' Monroe said of Wednesday's decision. He said they are 'disappointed with the decision' but 'it is what it is.' Stephens' lawsuit came less than a year after Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill in 2022 allowing Georgians to carry a handgun without a permit from the state. A bill that would let people sue local governments for enacting gun safety measures died on the final day of Georgia's legislative session in April, and several gun safety proposals did not make it out of committee. ___ Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon.
Sky News AU
09-05-2025
- Sky News AU
Georgia college student faces deportation after running red light — leading police to discover her entire family has been living illegally in US for years
A Georgia college student faces deportation after she ran a red light, and authorities discovered her entire family has been illegally living in the US for nearly 15 years. Mexican-national Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was pulled over by police in Dalton, Ga. on May 5 when she failed to adhere to a 'no turn on red' sign. Ximena Arias-Cristobal, a Dalton State Community College student, was driving without a driver's license but told officers she had an international driver's license, according to WTVC, citing the arrest report. She admitted that she didn't have the foreign document when Dalton police officers asked her to show it, claiming that her mother had taken it away from her and said she was not supposed to be driving. In 2010, Arias-Cristobal was brought into the US illegally by her parents when she was only 4 years old during the family's move from Mexico City to the Dalton area — over 30 miles from the Tennessee and Georgia border. Because of her non-citizen status, Arias-Cristobal was paying out-of-state tuition for school despite living in the area. The officer who pulled her over attempted to speak to the teen's mom and the owner of the car, but neither of them spoke English, according to the report. Arias-Cristobal was arrested and charged with driving without a valid license and failure to obey traffic control devices. She was transported to the Whitfield County Jail, a partner of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 287(G) program, used to identify illegal aliens in the country. 'This program operates based on a series of reviews and background checks completed only after an inmate is already arrested for an Offense under Georgia Law,' the jail's operation guide said. Arias-Cristobal was processed through the federal database, which confirmed she wasn't a US citizen. She was brought to ICE's Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., where her father, Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar, is also being held. Arias-Tovar was arrested last month when he was pulled over for driving 19 miles over the speed limit, the outlet reported. The father, who owns his own company, was denied proper paperwork to remain in the US. It was not known if he ever applied for citizenship. 'My dad has his own company, and they called a lawyer to see if they could get a job permit or a visa, and they said that they hadn't hit that status to get one yet,' Arias-Cristobal's younger sister told WTVC. Arias-Cristobal was not eligible for the DACA program, having been brought into the country a year after the program ended, according to Hannah Jones, the woman the teen babysat for in the past. Jones created a GoFundMe to raise money for an immigration attorney and bond for the teen. Chattanooga, Tennessee-based immigration attorney Terry Olsen called out the family's detention. 'We do see that ICE is really trying to find any and all methods to say that an international has some way violated the process and their status. What's concerning is that when they are being checked at these checkpoints or at the stops, ICE does not have their entire immigration file in front of them, they're not looking at all of it, and they're just relying on one item. This is a civil rights issue,' Olsen told the outlet. Olsen said Arias-Cristobal's mother will be arrested and deported within a month and her daughters will be taken with her to keep the family together. Originally published as Georgia college student faces deportation after running red light — leading police to discover her entire family has been living illegally in US for years
International Business Times
08-05-2025
- International Business Times
Ximena Arias-Cristobal: Georgia College Student to be Deported after She Ran Red Light that Revealed Her Entire Family Are Illegal Immigrants
A Georgia college student is set to be deported after running a red light, which led authorities to unravel that her entire family has been living illegally in the United States for 15 years. Mexican national Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was stopped by police in Dalton, Georgia, on May 5 after she ignored a "no turn on red" sign. Arias-Cristobal, a Dalton State Community College student, didn't have a valid driver's license but claimed she had an international driver's license, WTVC reported. She confessed to Dalton police officers that she didn't have the international permit with her because her mother took it from her and she wasn't supposed to be driving. Careless Mistake Exposes Illegal Stay In 2010, Arias-Cristobal was brought into the United States illegally by her parents when she was just 4 years old as the family relocated from Mexico City to the Dalton area, located more than 30 miles from the Georgia-Tennessee border. Due to her non-citizen status, Arias-Cristobal had to pay out-of-state tuition for college even though she had lived in the area for years. According to the police report, the officer who stopped her tried to speak with both her mother and the registered owner of the vehicle, but neither could speak English. Arias-Cristobal was arrested and charged with driving without a valid license and not following traffic signals. She was transported to the Whitfield County Jail, a partner of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through the 287(g) program—a system designed to identify illegal immigrants living in the United States. "This program operates based on a series of reviews and background checks completed only after an inmate is already arrested for an Offense under Georgia Law," the jail's operation guide said. Final Days in Jail Before Deportation Arias-Cristobal was processed through the federal immigration system, which verified that she is not a U.S. citizen. She was then transferred to ICE's Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia—the same facility where her father, Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar, is currently being held. Arias-Tovar was reportedly arrested last month after being stopped for driving 19 miles per hour above the speed limit. Although he runs his own business, he lacked the necessary legal documents to stay in the United States. It remains unclear whether he ever sought U.S. citizenship. "My dad has his own company, and they called a lawyer to see if they could get a job permit or a visa, and they said that they hadn't hit that status to get one yet," Arias-Cristobal's younger sister told WTVC. Hannah Jones, who previously employed Arias-Cristobal as a babysitter, explained that the teen did not qualify for the DACA program because she arrived in the U.S. a year after the cutoff date. Jones has since launched a GoFundMe campaign to help cover the costs of an immigration lawyer and bail for Arias-Cristobal. Meanwhile, immigration attorney Terry Olsen from Chattanooga, Tennessee, slammed the decision to detain the family. "We do see that ICE is really trying to find any and all methods to say that an international has some way violated the process and their status. What's concerning is that when they are being checked at these checkpoints or at the stops, ICE does not have their entire immigration file in front of them, they're not looking at all of it, and they're just relying on one item. This is a civil rights issue," Olsen told the outlet. Olsen said that Arias-Cristobal's mother will be arrested and deported next month, and her daughters will likely accompany her so the family can remain united.
New York Post
08-05-2025
- New York Post
Georgia college student faces deportation after running red light — police discover her entire family is living illegally in US for years
A Georgia college student faces deportation after she ran a red light, and authorities discovered her entire family has been illegally living in the US for nearly 15 years. Mexican-national Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was pulled over by police in Dalton, Ga. on May 5 when she failed to adhere to a 'no turn on red' sign. Ximena Arias-Cristobal, a Dalton State Community College student, was driving without a driver's license but told officers she had an international driver's license, according to WTVC, citing the arrest report. Advertisement 7 Ximena Arias-Cristobal was arrested for driving without a valid license and failure to obey traffic control devices on May 5, 2025. Whitfield Co. Sheriff's Office She admitted that she didn't have the foreign document when Dalton police officers asked her to show it, claiming that her mother had taken it away from her and said she was not supposed to be driving. In 2010, Arias-Cristobal was brought into the US illegally by her parents when she was only 4 years old during the family's move from Mexico City to the Dalton area — over 30 miles from the Tennessee and Georgia border. Advertisement Because of her non-citizen status, Arias-Cristobal was paying out-of-state tuition for school despite living in the area. The officer who pulled her over attempted to speak to the teen's mom and the owner of the car, but neither of them spoke English, according to the report. Arias-Cristobal was arrested and charged with driving without a valid license and failure to obey traffic control devices. 7 Arias-Cristobal poses with her father Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar after graduating from Dalton High School in May 2024. Hannah Jones Advertisement 7 Arias-Cristobal shows off her diplomas after graduating high school. Hannah Jones She was transported to the Whitfield County Jail, a partner of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 287(G) program, used to identify illegal aliens in the country. 'This program operates based on a series of reviews and background checks completed only after an inmate is already arrested for an Offense under Georgia Law,' the jail's operation guide said. Arias-Cristobal was processed through the federal database, which confirmed she wasn't a US citizen Advertisement She was brought to ICE's Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., where her father, Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar, is also being held. 7 Arias-Cristobal was transported to the Whitfield County Jail, a partner of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 287(G) program, used to identify illegal aliens in the country. Hannah Jones 7 Arias-Cristobal was brought into the US illegally by her parents when she was only 4 years old in 2010. Hannah Jones Arias-Tovar was arrested last month when he was pulled over for driving 19 miles over the speed limit, the outlet reported. The father, who owns his own company, was denied proper paperwork to remain in the US. It was not known if he ever applied for citizenship. 'My dad has his own company, and they called a lawyer to see if they could get a job permit or a visa, and they said that they hadn't hit that status to get one yet,' Arias-Cristobal's younger sister told WTVC. 7 Arias-Tovar owns his own company and was denied proper paperwork to remain in the US. Hannah Jones Arias-Cristobal was not eligible for the DACA program, having been brought into the country a year after the program ended, according to Hannah Jones, the woman the teen babysat for in the past. Advertisement Jones created a GoFundMe to raise money for an immigration attorney and bond for the teen. Chatanooga, Tennessee-based immigration attorney Terry Olsen called out the family's detention. 7 Arias-Cristobal was not eligible for the DACA program, having been brought into the country a year after the program ended. Hannah Jones Advertisement 'We do see that ICE is really trying to find any and all methods to say that an international has some way violated the process and their status. What's concerning is that when they are being checked at these checkpoints or at the stops, ICE does not have their entire immigration file in front of them, they're not looking at all of it, and they're just relying on one item. This is a civil rights issue,' Olsen told the outlet. Olsen said Arias-Cristobal's mother will be arrested and deported within a month and her daughters will be taken with her to keep the family together.
