Emir Palacios is 17, a senior at Lithia Springs High School and hopes to go to college to study criminal justice or fashion design or maybe become a Spanish teacher.
He is also gay and moved with his family to the U.S. in 1997 from Acapulco, Guerrero Mexico, when Palacios was three. The family first moved to California then to Atlanta to find work.
Palacios and his family are among those affected by HB 87, Georgia’s new law set to go into effect July 1 and titled the “Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011.”
Jim Galloway, writer of the Political Insider column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says that the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials won't support boycotts of the state as part of opposition to passage of the law.
GALEO is headed up by openly gay man Jerry Gonzalez.
According to Galloway, Gonzales issued a statement that states: