Sign the pledge to boycott: mycuentame.org/boycottgeorgia. The message is spreading. We can’t stop now – Governor Deal has the opportunity to reject discrimination and persecution – and pushback against the corruption by the private prison industries behind HB87.

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Via Change.org

Gabriela Garcia · May 05, 2011

As Georgia Governor Nathan Deal prepares to sign the state’s Arizona copycat bill HB 87 into law, possibly this week, pressure to veto is mounting. Last week, the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, Turning the Tide campaign, and National Lesbian and Gay Task Force delivered a press release informing the governor that a national boycott of the state was being organized in anticipation of the extreme immigration bill being signed into law. Now, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that those effects are already being felt.

The U.S. Human Rights Network, a non-profit that holds a biannual three-day, 600-person conference attended by members of several national organizations, had plans to hold its convention in Atlanta. But a spokeswoman has announced that the organization is canceling those plans and moving the convention to a different city, specifically because of HB 87.

If Georgia continues to lose large conventions such as that one, as well as investment in the state’s many industries, the financial results could be devastating. A similar boycott of Arizona is projected to cost the state a total loss of $750 million.

The Atlanta City Council, the Fulton County Commission, and the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau have all joined human rights organizations in urging Governor Deal to reconsider his decision to sign an anti-immigrant bill into law in Georgia. In these final days before the bill reaches his desk, ask the governor to do the morally and fiscally responsible thing and veto HB 87.

Photo Courtesy of Amnesty International